Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
From time to time, when I’ve lectured on how to read the Bible, I’ve used art-music as one example thereof. When we listen to a simple folk song, we hear the same melody over and over again, but this is not how composers write "high" music. Let me amplify. A…
Sermons are rarely more tiresome than when they strive for relevance. Drawing from the latest headlines transforms the preacher into a one-man MacLaughlin Group, a Crossfire without the cross though perhaps with some of the fire, and leave the congregation thinking, "If I wanted Meet the Press, I could have…
Part One: The Old Testament “Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness, but the abuse of drink is from Satan, the wine is from God, but the drunkard is from the Devil” Increase Mather in Wo to Drunkards (1673). 1. The “wine”…
28. These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the 7th year 3023 Jews. 29. In the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem. 30. In the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4600…
Revelation 21:24 says, concerning the light shining from the New Jerusalem, "and the nations will walk by her light, and the kings of the land will bring their glory into her." Similarly, Revelation 22:2 says, concerning the Tree of Life, that "the leaves of the tree were for the healing…
Jeremiah and the Beginning of Jehoiakim’s Reign Now comes Jeremiah, at the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, with similar words (Jeremiah 26). Harken to God’s law, he said, or else God will destroy the Temple the same way He sent the Philistines to tear down the Tabernacle at Shiloh (Jeremiah 26:6;…
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John records Jesus saying “Amen, Amen” some twenty-five times. It’s typically understood as an oath formula, a “double witness” that stresses the truth of what Jesus says. But there’s an additional dimension. The double Amen appears in the Old Testament only a few times. The people respond to Ezra’s blessing…
Jesus has “life in Myself” (John 5:26). That appears to be an inherent quality. But Jesus doesn’t set inherent and received in opposition: The life that He has in Himself is a gift from His Father. His quality of having-life-in-Himself is given to Him from Another. And when He gives…
Why are the seven letters of Revelation addressed to churches in Asia Minor? Asia Minor isn’t a focus of interest at all in the Old Testament, though much of Paul’s ministry is carried out among diaspora communities and churches there. That only shifts the question: Why is Paul interested in…
Derek Thompson analyzes the “savior fallacy” that drives many NBA teams in the Atlantic . It has several components: Mediocrity is the worst, and mediocre teams stay mediocre, so “tanking” becomes a deliberate strategy; one top draft choice can change a loser into a championship team; so, it’s best to…
Robert Kaplan offers a brief in defense of empire at the Atlantic. “Throughout history,” he argues, “governance and relative safety have most often been provided by empires, Western or Eastern. Anarchy reigned in the interregnums.” Globalization today depends on the infrastructure of the British empire: “as the Harvard historian Niall…
Larry Sidentop’s Inventing the Individual is intellectual history of the old school, the broad-sweep, big-idea type. Jeffrey Collins thinks that for all the dangers the book works ( TLS review). It is “a thoroughly interesting and fundamentally convincing book.” The key development, Siedentop argues, was the “Christian revolution” that gave…
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