Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I thought it might be good to put this up here, since it is 14 years old, and itself reflects earlier discussion. From this you can see that we at BH have been considering this notion for quite some time. Clearly, the last word has not been said. — James…
Hopefully, my commentary on James will be out later this year. But here are a few chiasms for your consideration. I think the James 5 chiasm orginally came from Doug Jordan. The entire book of James is focused on how the pastors and leaders (“brothers”) of the church use their…
In my first post I noted that the parables of Jesus were not simply illustrative stories. They are really nothing like the kind of simple, homely illustrations that preachers often use to explain difficult concepts to their congregations. Just to be clear: there’s nothing wrong with illustrating one’s sermonic statements.…
Ephesians is often treated as a pure type example of the Pauline method that “the indicative preceds the imperative.” But what Paul does first is pray . Simply reading verse 3 and following involves readers in a prayer of thanksgiving to God–and much more so for those listening to the…
Yesterday, I took part with my oldest son in a church-sponsored city outreach project (not because I’m especially prone to such behavior but because my son has a Boy Scout requirement that this would help him meet). Before we were sent out on our various jobs, the leader gave a…
There is a scene in Prince Caspian , the second in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia that helps explain why it is we have four Gospels, that is four accounts of the Good News of Jesus Christ—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is the account of Lucy’s longed-for experience…
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1 Samuel 16:2-3: But Samuel said, How can I go? When Saul hears of it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with you, and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. And you shall invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show…
Samuel anointed David with oil to designate him as the crown-prince, the successor of Saul. But why oil? Oil is food. It is one of the main ingredients of bread in Scripture, and a food in its own right. With grapes and grain, oil is one of the main products…
Walter Burkert has spent a good bit of his life tracing Greek art, mythology, language, and social practices to ANE origins. In his 2004 Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis he analyzes the passage from the Iliad where Hera deceptively tells Zeus she is going to Oceanus, whom she calls “origin of the…
Was Augustine, as Charles Taylor and others have said, the inventor of Western interiority? Perhaps, but only because Augustine was misread. Matthew Maguire offers this summary of the the effects of Arnauld d’Andilly’s 1649 French translation of Augustine’s Confessions: “Although d’Andilly faithfully renders memory’s opening unto the infinite - and…
It’s an old story now, but I just came across it. In a 2002 editorial on the paedophilia/homosexuality crisis in the Catholic church, Charles Krauthammer recounted a story about a priest in Hobart, Australia. Many years ago, a rapist entered the church hoping for protection from the authorities. When the…
Allison again, commending on Hebrews 9:15-22 and the phrase “this is the blood of the covenant” that the writer of Hebrews quotes from Moses: “There is no ‘this is’ . . . in Exod. 24:8. The MT prefaces ‘the blood’ with HINNEH, the LXX with IDOU. Why the modification? The…
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