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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Divine simplicity is often summarized in the axiom, "All that's in God is God." If this is taken at face value, though, it conflicts with Trinitarian orthodoxy. 1) By this axiom, the Persons are identical with the essence of God. 2) But the Persons have (or are) identifying particularities or…
Every commentator nowadays notes that the description of the tabernacle in Exodus 25-31 is laid out in seven speeches of Yahweh that mimic the days of creation. It’s less obvious that the first subsection of Exodus 25-31 also follows the creation week, as does Moses’ erection of the tabernacle in…
Romans 14-15 overlaps in several ways with 1 Corinthians 8—10. Both deal with problems about food. In both, Paul talks about the “weak” and the “strong,” and encourages the strong to defer to the weak. The overlap isn’t total. Romans 14-15 isn’t dealing specifically with meat sacrificed to idols, but…
Skin is philosophically intriguing. It’s our largest and most sensitive organ. It’s a forming principle, working with the skeleton to give shape to the body. The beauty of a beautiful person is, in large measure, the radiance of skin. Skin is the boundary between our inside and outside, and like…
This little babe, so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake. Though he himself for cold do shake, For in this weak unarmèd wise The gates of hell he will surprise. With tears he fights and wins the field; His naked…
The premise of Brent Strawn's argument in The Old Testament Is Dying is that the Old Testament is a language. That is, it "is, or at least can be, a way of constructing reality, a way of understanding the world, a way of perceiving all that is, including ourselves" (8).…
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