Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When might the Gospel according to Matthew have been written? Of course, any answer can only be speculation, but that does not mean we are reduced to groundless opinion. In this series of articles I point the way to an approach different from the general consensus among scholars today which…
In my first essay on “synopticity” I offered a rather rough definition of the phenomenon and important, though not exhaustive examples. In this essay, I want to introduce broader aspects of the phenomenon of “synopticity.” The first example that I have in mind is conventional stories, stories of different historical…
Since the judgment of Babel was followed by the initiation of the circumcision, the impending end of the circumcision in AD70 explains the significance of the first century miracle of foreign tongues. Except for a few Aramaic “teasers” in the book of Daniel, the Word of God was monolingual and…
To the best of my knowledge “synopticity” is not a word used in theology or Biblical studies, but it seems an appropriate word to describe the kind of phenomena associated with the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three Gospels tell essentially the same story with significant — sometimes…
Humor is a funny thing. It is altogether familiar yet also mysterious. What makes us laugh? Why do we find things funny? There are academic fields of study dedicated to discovering what makes things humorous. These academicians even have a journal entitled International Journal of Humor Research . No joke.…
Out of all the characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales , the Pardoner has been called the “one lost soul.” The pious Parson, who closes out the collection of tales with a sermon on the seven deadly sins and how a sinner can absolve himself of them, connects the…
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Colossians 1:13: He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. When Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke from heaven: “This is My beloved Son.” Paul refers to that event here when he describes salvation as a transfer from the authority…
“It was the Father’s good pleasure for the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things,” Paul writes in our sermon text. The Father sends the Son to renew all things because it pleases Him to do so. Nothing forces the Father. He doesn’t have to…
Near the beginning of On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patrictics Series) , Athanasius reviews various theories concerning the origin of the world. It cannot be the case that matter existed eternally, since that would be a limit on God. It also cannot be the case that the world is…
“Traditional societies are far more diverse in many of their cultural practices than are modern industrial societies,” writes Jared Diamond in his recent The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? . Modern societies are outliers on the spectrum. So it’s rather weird that “psychologists base most…
Esau is the original hairy ( se’ar ) man of the Bible (Genesis 25:25), and the reputation goes with the Edomites, his descendants, who live at Mount Shaggy (Seir; Genesis 14:6; 32:3; 33:14; etc.). He’s not the last hairy man. Nazirites are hairy (Numbers 6:5, 18; Judges 16:22), including the…
We are nearly ready to send out the first edition of our Trinity House email newsletter, In Medias Res . In the first issue, we give updates about Trinity House, I discuss the church’s response to gay marriage, and James Jordan translates and comments on Psalm 62. Sign up at…
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