Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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A perceptive Lutheran reader asked whether I was endorsing an antinomian position in my favorable summary of Kolb’s article on Luther and Chemnitz. He pointed out that Kolb’s position relies on an illegitimate separation of God and His Law, and argued that instead the Law should be seen as an…
?And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook.?E In this morning sermon, we saw how the writer of Kings highlights the authority of Elijah and His power. He speaks, and the heavens become…
So what? So what if Jeroboam made golden calves and worshiped them at Dan and Bethel? So what if the house of Jeroboam was destroyed by Baasha, and the house of Baasha destroyed by Zimri, and Zimri destroyed by Omri, and the house of Omri destroyed by Jehu? What does…
Alain de Botton notes in his book Status Anxiety that many societies see a direct relationship between reputation and self-image. If others hold me in contempt, then I must either defend myself against their contempt or accept their contemptuous assessment. Philosophy introduces a mediator, reason, which assesses and judges reputation…
I finally watched The Village . Much of it was perfectly silly. The initial explanation of the dead animals littering the village is that a coyote is on the loose, and this theory is put to rest only when it’s decided that coyotes are not big enough to leave big…
Robert Kolb offers this helpful analysis of the differences between Luther and Chemnitz on justification: “Luther understood justification as the execution of the wages of sin . . . upon sinners and their simultaneous resurrectionto new life in Jesus Christ . . . . Chemnitz did not pursue this aspect…
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