Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Midwives are rarely mentioned in Scripture, but play a prominent role in the first chapter of Exodus. The word midwife is used seven times in verses 15-22, though it is used only twice elsewhere in the Old Testament. The reason, I think, is not merely that the midwives were heroic…
Leviathan (41:1-11) is the climax of the theophany, the culmination of the Lord’s speech. His final answer to Job’s injudicious charges against God’s justice. After hearing God rehearse the characteristics of Leviathan and His absolute power over him, Job instantly repents in dust and ashes. He confesses, "I know now…
Our purpose in this study is to lay out the chronology and history of the Kingdom of Judah from the reign of King Josiah to the completion of the exile of the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar, with particular attention to the events recorded in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Empire of Assyria…
Protestants have always insisted that the sacraments bring no benefit without a response of faith, but this seems to undermine infant baptism, since infants do not appear to be able to exercise faith. Luther and Calvin held together their insistence on faith with infant baptism by claiming that infants can…
Traditional Presbyterian theologians regularly cite 1 Corinthians 11:28 as an argument against the practice of paedocommunion. Children must be able “to examine themselves” before they come to the table. Supposedly this text demands a certain level of intellectual capability as well as the capacity to engage in self-conscious introspection, both…
Yahweh’s two speeches at the end of the book of Job (38-41) should bring some closure to the book. The prologue has the whole cosmic order arrayed against the blameless and upright Job, "a man who feared God and shunned evil" (1:1, 8; 2:3). Yahweh’s capstone speeches affirm God’s absolute…
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Kim R. Holmes argues in an essay at Public Discourse that “The Donald is very much a child of contemporary American culture, including its multicultural offshoot, identity politics. Although he rejects the leftist ideology of multiculturalism, especially the hypersensitivity of political correctness, he is operating well within its value system.…
Adam Kotsko observes ( Why We Love Sociopaths ) that contemporary TV is awash with sociopathic character, “ruthless individuals who make their own rules.” These he calls “fantasy sociopaths,” who are capable of maintaining two incompatible positions simultaneously. They are “somehow outside social norms—largely bereft of human sympathy, for instance,…
The history of language is the a history of “extinction,” writes John McWhorter at The Atlantic . But there's a contrary trend: “new dialects have been emerging in cities worldwide, and it’s young people—specifically, the children of immigrants—who are driving the trend. One of the surprising consequences of the current…
In an essay on Congar's Tradition and Traditions in the first volume of God Without Measure , John Webster asks what a “Protestant admirer” might say about Congar's, and Catholicism's, project of ressourcement . He objects to the characterization of Protestantism that is embedded in the project: “It ‘explains' Protestantism…
Ryan Leif Hansen ( Silence and Praise ) observes that the command to “Come” frames the book of Revelation. As the Lamb opens the first four seals, each of the four living creatures calls for a horseman to “Come” (6:1-8), and the book ends with three more commands. The Spirit…
The Iliad was the virtual Bible of the Greek world. As Plato says in the Republic, some Greeks (not Plato!) believed that Homer “educated Hellas and that he deserves to be taken up as an instructor in the management and culture of human affairs, and that a man ought to…
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