Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Protestant-Catholic relationship has hardly been an untroubled one. And yet, the possibilities for various layers of reconciliation are better then at any time since the original schism 500 years ago. One of the symbols for the church that is used in Scripture is the church as a household (Ephesians…
Despite the layers of wiping, covering, and ransoming during the Day of Recoverings, true unity still has not been achieved. Divorce is still possible; God still might leave his people. Thus the Day of Recoverings must be repeated every year. The perpetual expression of unity between God and man in…
The events of Leviticus 16 are commonly known as “The Day of Atonement,” from the Hebrew phrase yom hakippurim, in Leviticus 23:27. However, it would be more accurate to say, “The Day of Atonements,” [i] since the word is plural. The plurality primarily relates to 16:33, which states five different…
Mary Douglas, against the common notion that primitive religious rituals were illogical and random asserts, “The analysis of ritual symbolism cannot begin until we recognize ritual as an attempt to create and maintain a particular culture … Any culture is a series of structures which comprise social forms, values, cosmology,…
Jesus holds seven stars. They are the angels of the seven churches (Revelation 1:20). For ancient readers and hearers, "seven stars" would evoke a number of associations - the seven planets, the seven stars of Ursa Major, and the seven stars that make up the Pleiades. The last makes a…
When he first arrives in Harran, at Paddan-Aram, the home of Laban his uncle, Jacob sees a well. Wells are mentioned frequently in Genesis. Twice Hagar finds a well in the wilderness (Genesis 16:14; 21:19). Philistines seize Abraham’s well (21:22-34), and Abraham’s chief servant finds a wife for Isaac at…
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Pastor Steve Wilkins clarifies the question of apostasy and assurance at the Trinity House site .
Hugh Thomas’s World Without End is the final installment of his trilogy on imperialism in the century after Columbus. It focuses on what Thomas calls the “age of administration,” the age (in the words of the Economist reviewer) “in which professional officials, many of them clerics, gradually took over from…
The TLS reviewer of David Gange’s Dialogues with the Dead and Bob Brier’s Egyptomania catalogues some of the Egyptian trinkets that amused Victorians: “Victorian ladies wore sarcophagi charms and brooches of winged scarabs; men’s coat buttons were embossed with pharaohs’ heads. ‘Egyptian’ cigarettes were all the rage along with smoking…
Anthony Flint’s forthcoming biography of Le Corbusier, Modern Man , recounts the architect’s famous exploits, sexual, artistic, intellectual. It’s a lively story, breezily written. What surprises is the impact that what Flint characterizes as a “side trip” to the Carthusian Monastery of Val D’ema had on the architect. The honeycomb…
Paul tells the story of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac as an allegory (Galatians 4). He’s not reading into the text. He’s reading an allegory out of the text, an allegory that would have been evident to Israelite readers of the exodus generation. Hagar is the first human being…
At the 2014 Biblical Horizons summer conference last week, James Jordan argued that, unlike the tabernacle that is a reconstituted garden, the temple draws its imagery from the land. The architectural symbolism of the temple includes trees, pomegranates, lilies, lions, palm trees, and other flora and fauna that were not…
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