Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
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Romans 3:25-26: God displayed Jesus publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be…
We come here every week to give praise and honor to God. We also come because God promises to give us gifts – to cleanse us from sin, to speak a word of encouragement and conviction, to feed us at His table. The Triune God is a giving God, and…
Stephen Long ( Speaking of God: Theology, Language and Truth (Eerdmans Ekklesia) ) summarizes Alain Badiou’s complaint against the subordination of “truth to a liberal politics ruled by the language of rights and diversity”: “For Badiou the language of ‘rights’ requires that our political bonds are grounded in evil because…
Why a crown of thorns? A sign of the curse, obviously. But thorns grow from the ground, and specifically grow from the ground when there are no people to cut them back. Thorns replace vines, grain, olive trees when Israel is driven into exile. A king with a crown of…
Some partial, exploratory, perhaps incoherent thoughts on imputation. 1) A recurrent charge against imputation is that it seems to rest on a legal fiction - someone being treated as guilty who’s not, someone being treated as just who’s not. 2) There are hints within the Levitical system that imputation is…
In Genesis 9:11, Yahweh promises not to “cut off flesh” by water. That is the covenant with Noah. A few chapters later, Yahweh tells Abram that he must cut off the flesh of all male children of Israel, not by water but by a knife. That means that Abram’s children…
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