Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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Revelation 12 is an allegory of Jesus and the church. A laboring woman clothed with the sun is stalked by a dragon. The woman gives birth, and the child is snatched away to heaven. This is Christ, but He seems a crossless Christ: A theology of glory if there ever…
Uche Anizor’s Kings and Priests is a useful contribution to the burgeoning library of theological interpretation. Anizor uses the biblical categories of king and priest to harmonize a stress the theological dimension of Scripture interpretation (God’s initiative in revelation) with the ethical dimension (what kinds of people make good Scripture…
Uche Anizor’s Kings and Priests includes a neat description of a “tale of two readings” - that of Josiah (2 Kings 22-23) and that of Jehoikim (Jeremiah 36). In both cases, a text is presented to a king, and Jeremiah wrote his account of Jehoiakim to evoke the memory of…
Uche Anizor writes ( Kings and Priests , 78-9) analyzes Psalm 119 as a “developed expression of devotion to God’s Word” and a complex literary structure: “The first is its acrostic form: each stanza is headed by a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet and each line begins with that…
Pastor Rich Lusk reflects on the difficulties of pursuing Reformational Catholicism in the Bible Belt at the Trinity House site .
When John learns that there is no worthy one to open the Father’s book, he weeps greatly (Revelation 5:4). It seems a melodramatic touch, more at home in the Shepherd of Hermas or Pilgrim’s Progress than the Bible. It is an essential moment in the scene, though. For starters, John…
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