Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
References to the Son of Man coming on the clouds occur five times in the Synoptic Gospels. Three times such expressions appear in the parallel accounts of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:36; Luke 21:27). Then, in parallel accounts of Jesus’ trial before the leaders of Israel, such expressions…
Just what the difference is in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is a question not so easily answered. The distinction is often said to be that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is on the believer, but in the New…
1. Introduction You should think of 1917 at church on Sunday. Why? Let me explain. There's one film every Oscar season which everyone seems to have watched—your parents, your colleagues, even your pastor. This year, it's 1917— Sam Mendes' WW1 epic following two British Tommies on a seemingly impossible quest…
This piece was originally part of the Bowyer response to the Theopolis series surrounding Professor McDermott’s essay, “Rethinking Israel.” For the sake of brevity, it was removed from the initial response, to be published as a standalone piece. As we’ve argued previously , we are strongly supportive of the right…
Richard Bauckham’s groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony , is profoundly insightful, but the message of the book is hampered by the presupposition of Marcan priority. Ironically the place where this assumption perhaps does its most damage is in Bauckham’s discussion of the apostle Matthew…
The Protestant Reformation was defined by certain clarifying disagreements between the medieval Church and those who came to be known as Protestant Reformers. Chief among these was the nature of justification: whether one was justified by works, or by faith and works, or—as Martin Luther contended—by faith alone. Now over…
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Peter Cotterell and Max Turner summarize James Barr’s case against etymology, dismissing TF Torrance’s claims about the links between ekklesia and kaleo , qahal and qol : “Even if qahal derives from qol , ‘voice’, (which is no more than merely possible ) it remains highly questionable whether anyone would…
Ogden and Richards, whose triangle of signification (word, concept, reference) has had a significant impact in evangelical hermeneutics, begin their book on the “meaning of meaning” by acknowledging that words have other functions than referential, “which may be grouped together as emotive. These can best be examined when the framework…
In his book, Liturgies and Trials , Richard Fenn writes, “The individual is perpetually facing judgment by abstract and impersonal criteria that are only partially revealed while always calling into question the individual’s own sense of worthiness . . . the theme of the ‘last judgment’ loses its theological framework,…
In Arthur Miller’s After the Fall , a character says, “When you’re young, you prove how brave you are, or smart; when what a good lover; then a good father; finally how wise or powerful or what-the-hell-ever. But underlying it all, I see now, there was a presumption. That I…
I like J. Louis Martyn. His commentary on Galatians is a masterpiece, and the other essays I’ve read are all very stimulating. I begin with a disclaimer because what has been called Martyn’s “seminal proposal” concerning the gospel of John is remarkable mainly for the absence of evidence and argument.…
In the introduction to his Elements of Semiology (1964), Roland Barthes argues that for all the icons and images that surround us, we remain a civilization of the word: “Semiology has so far concerned itself with codes of no more than slight interest, such as the Highway Code; the moment…
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