Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh answered him, "Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! This one will restrain My people" (1 Samuel 9:17) Many English versions of 1 Samuel 9:17 read, "This one will rule over My people," but that is a mistranslation. The Hebrew verb is `atsar…
We have arrived at the tentative date of A.M. 3474 for the decree of Cyrus, and we have determined to operate as if the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 are literal years. We also decided that Messiah the Prince arrives at the beginning of the 70th week, after the 69…
The book of Proverbs appears as a largely random collection of aphorisms drawn from experience saturated in law. Despite its random arrangement, however, the book does have an over-arching structure that reinforces its main themes. One way to gather clues regarding the structure of a biblical book (or any book)…
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of reading the first draught of Gary North’s Economic Commentary on Leviticus , which will be out some time next year. Gary’s comments on Leviticus 27 were stimulating, and caused me to take another look at the passage. The results, which I sent…
As we have seen in this series, each time there is a new covenant, there is a break in the year-by-year chronology. At the same time, each time the break is crossed by information provided in the text. Thus, the year-by-year chronology breaks down at the birth of Abraham, but…
The Openness of Literature Let’s discuss literature for a moment. There are two ways a story or novel can close. The first is called poetic justice. When a story ends with poetic justice, the bad guys are all punished and the good guys are all rewarded. This kind of story…
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I believe I first ran across Victor Zuckerkandl’s name in some of Colin Gunton’s work, and Jeremy Begbie makes significant use of Zuckerkandl in his book on theology and music. I’ve posted on Zuckerkandl before, but having now had a chance to read more of his book, Sound and Symbol…
Exhortation for November 16: We often read Scripture with far too little attention. At times, the stories are so familiar that they just glide past us without our really hearing what is said or read. At other times, the stories are so bizarre that we have a hard time beginning…
Communion meditation for November 16: At one point in our sermon text, Jesus is asked about how many people are being saved, and Jesus immediately begins to speak about doors being closed. It’s clear from what follows that the doors are the doors of a banquet hall, and that Jesus…
I’m not sure that I made my point clear in an earlier post about “justified” in Rom 2:13: I was hinting and gesturing toward the conclusion that “justified” here must include the notion of “rescue,” and not merely a judicial sentence. Because “justified” is structurally opposed to “perish,” it must…
I’m not sure that I made my point clear in an earlier post about “justified” in Rom 2:13: I was hinting and gesturing toward the conclusion that “justified” here must include the notion of “rescue,” and not merely a judicial sentence. Because “justified” is structurally opposed to “perish,” it must…
“Day of wrath” in Romans 2:5: This is universally (so far as I know) taken as a reference to the final day of judgment. But a) is there any other passage in Scripture that uses this phrase to refer to the final judgment? and b) is the final day of…
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