Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…
A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…
The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…
The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…
I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…
Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…
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Does the intention of the author determine the sense? There are problems with saying Yes, particularly when “intention” is assumed to be the mental state of the author, which is unrecoverable. There are also problems with saying No, because that seems to introduce (as ED Hirsch argues) a hermeneutical free-for-all.…
In an article in Theology Today (1980), David Steinmetz quotes Benjamin’s Jowett’s essay on the interpretation of Scripture (1859), which insists on a single meaning in a text - the meaning intended by the author and understood by the original audience. Steinmetz admits that critical scholarship has moved on since…
Dahood takes “righteous” in Psalm 118:15, 19 as “victory.” The joyful shouting is heard from the tents of the victorious, and the gates are the gates of victory. He cites Isaiah 41:2 and 49:24 as other texts where this nuance of ZDK comes to the fore. The meaning could be:…
More notes, taken from or inspired by Michael Dahood’s Anchor Bible commentary. 1) Dahood makes good sense of the entire Psalm by assuming that it moves from a place of battle and victory (vv. 5-14), to the victory celebration in the tents of the war camp (vv. 15-18), and then…
With his usual critical insight, Auden captured Austen’s knowingness in a poem about Byron: You could not shock her more than she shocks me; Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass. It makes me most uncomfortable to see An English spinster of the middle class Describe the amorous effects of…
Gregory the Great again: “he that treats of sacred writ should follow the way of a river, for if a river, as it flows along its channel, meets with open valleys on its side, into these it immediately turns the course of its current, and when they are copiously supplised,…
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