Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This was a newspaper column that I wrote for the Minco Millennium back in January of 2000 when I had first moved to Minco, Oklahoma to pastor First Reformed Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t able to catch the recent performance of the musical, Godspell , in Oklahoma City. However, my dad…
Awhile back, there was a big debate among Evangelicals as to whether one had to trust Jesus “as Lord” as well as “as savior. Some claimed that one could be saved by Jesus through a faith that did not involve submission to him as Lord. Others claimed that one must…
I originally wrote this a few weeks ago in April 2002 as a column in the local newspaper, The Minco Millennium under the title “Faith & Follow-Through.” Several passages in the book of Hebrews are difficult for Protestants to swallow. The author affirms the once-and-for-all work of Christ and yet…
N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans is destined to be a classic. The introduction alone is worth the hefty price of the book — but the exegesis itself is, well, priceless. I will not attempt a full review — these are just miscellaneous thoughts and random reflections — but I…
At an inn in the town of Lystra three men sat around a corner table. All three were well-known disciples of Joshua Messiah, members of what the town called a new cult, the Way. The short gray-haired man with the enormous beard was clearly restless. “This is taking too long,”…
Recently there has been some surprising debate in some circles over where Paul summarizes his Gospel. I say “surprising” because many Evangelical Bible scholars have held, for quite some time, that Paul’s Gospel is encapsulated in Romans chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Here is the passage in context: Paul,…
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The world enters our worship, it is brought into the King’s palace and made part of the King’s worship, so that it can be transformed, so that it can reach its telos . Worship is a microcosm, or, as Jordan puts it, a “microchron.” What is brought into worship? Our…
We often believe, Paul Griffiths writes ( Decreation , 162-4) that eros is “a drive or appetite internal to itself by means of which it relates itself to a world external to itself.” Not so. “The flesh's eros is received as git, not possessed as aspiration.” We become capable of…
In the first of his Hulsean lectures, Richard Hays claims ( Reading Backwards ) that “many ‘mainstream' Protestant churches today are . . . naively Marcionite in their theology and practice: in their worship services they have no OT reading, or if the OT is read it is rarely preached…
John sees great signs in heaven (Revelation 12:1-4). After sweeping the stars from the sky, the dragon stands ready to devour the child that the woman bears. To “stand before” another is a liturgical position. Priests stand before the Lord. That is the position of the dragon in relation to…
A GPS can locate a human being. The “glowing blue dot on the Google-mapped smartphone” shows where your phone is. But, Paul Griffiths ( Decreation ) argues, these devices cannot locate human flesh. Such devices work only as they treat your flesh as “inanimate body,” which is not what it…
Philip Jenkins's contribution to The Globalization of Christianity (edited by Gordon Heath and Steven Studebaker) offers sobering and exciting news by turns. On the sobering side, he describes the statistical stagnation of Christianity, and compares it to the spread of Islam. For the past century, Christianity has held steady at…
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