Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Genesis 3 ends on a decisive, and decisively negative, note. Yahweh “drove the man out” of the garden, and, in addition, “at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life.”…
When she died in 2005 at the age of 72, Anna Haycraft, the author who published under the name Alice Thomas Ellis, was a celebrated writer in Great Britain. While working at Duckworth Publishers(which her husband owned), she produced a dozen novels, a collection of short stories, a cookbook, volumes…
Some have suggested recently that my "project" is postmodern. To clarify my views on postmodernism, I'm re-posting something I wrote in 2005, with a few modifications. For a fuller discussion, you can check out my Solomon among the Postmoderns (Canon, 2008). First, it is helpful to distinguish, as many writers…
Calling Jerusalem the "holy city" comes so naturally to Christians that it comes as something of a surprise to realize how infrequently the phrase is used in Scripture. Not only is Jerusalem rarely called holy, but in the Old Testament this classification is found only in texts that refer to…
Asking why the church doesn’t sing hymns or even why men don’t sing in church is a bit like lamenting over the lame man who can’t waltz on the dance floor. While it is a valid question, the more immediate question would seem to be, “why doesn’t the lame man…
The theme of 1 Timothy is the distinction between the true children in the Household of God and false children who really belong to the household of Satan. This is seen in the fact that in the chiastic structure of the Epistle, heresy is the subject in the center (…
Showing page 172 of 309
Showing page 3 of 43
A couple of observations about the sin or purification offering, with implications for corporate dimensions of sin. 1. Leviticus 4 prescribes the rituals for the purification offering for priests (4:1-12), the congregation (4:13-21), leaders (4:22-26), and common Israelites (4:27-35) The introduction to the last category includes a grammatical ambiguity. The…
In the New Testament, hope is often “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). David Steindl-Rast ( Gratefulness ) argues that this hope links together our personal encounter with the risen Christ with the “power to transform even the social structures of our time.” Scripture fuses two conceptions of glory. In Hebrew,…
The seven speeches that described the tabernacle end with a reiteration of the Sabbath command (Exodus 31:12-17). The description of the actual construction of the tabernacle begins with a reiteration of the Sabbath command (Exodus 35:1-3). Building the tabernacle will establish a zone of Sabbath in the midst of Israel,…
When I pick up a book that Time calls “screamingly funny” and “intoxicating,” I'm poised to disagree, to find fault. Sometimes, rarely , I find the critics are right. I had that experience recently when I hurtled through George Saunders’s 2000 short story collection, Pastoralia . Pastoralia ’s stories are…
The description of the tabernacle in Exodus 25-31 is organized in seven speeches, each of which begins with “Yahweh spoke” or “Yahweh said.” After the golden calf incident, we read another description of the tabernacle, but it’s not organized in the same way. In Exodus 32-40, “Yahweh spoke” is used…
Even before Jesus was born, the Spirit is stirring, preparing the way for His coming. Gabriel tells Zecharias that his son John will be filled with the Spirit from the womb (Luke 1:15), and after John’s birth the Spirit loosens the tongue of Zecharias so he can prophesy (Luke 1:67).…
Showing page 19 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
