Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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The Pharisees are the surly elder brother in Jesus’ parable, and surely they expected that the father would be equally surly - greeting his returned son with harsh rebukes and scolding rather than with joy. How did they miss it? Israel’s whole history demonstrated the opposite. Israel’s history revealed Israel’s…
1 John 2:23 says that whoever denies the Son denies the Father as well, and vice versa - whoever confesses the Son confesses the Father. What’s the logic here? Is John assuming that Jesus is the mediator who makes a way to the Father, so that denying him closes off…
It’s common among evangelicals to say that the gospel is about God solving the tension between His justice and His mercy. As a just God, He must punish sin; as a merciful God, He seeks to save. The cross combines the two. At one level, I have no problem with…
I’ve commented before on the sequence of 1 John 1:7, which moves from walking in the light to fellowship with one another, to cleansing by Jesus’ blood. The presence of “fellowship with one another” between walking in the light and cleansing is striking. Equally striking is the conditional introduction to…
Reviewing several recent books on the Christian Right in the current issue of First Things, Ross Douthat has this to say about Rushdoony: “What he has instead are the Christian Reconstructionists—the acolytes of the late R.J. Rushdoony—who are genuine theocrats, of a sort, and who also rank somewhere between the…
Reviewing several recent books on the Christian Right in the current issue of First Things, Ross Douthat has this to say about Rushdoony: “What he has instead are the Christian Reconstructionists—the acolytes of the late R.J. Rushdoony—who are genuine theocrats, of a sort, and who also rank somewhere between the…
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