Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…
One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…
Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…
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While mourning, Israelites would put ashes and dust on their heads. Why? Yahweh told Adam and Eve that they would die, returning to the dust: From dust you were taken, to dust you shall return. Abram prayed to Yahweh saying that he was nothing but dust and ashes, acknowledging that…
Gibbon captures the pervasive character of idolatry in Roman society and culture in a passage from the Decline and Fall : “it was the first but arduous duty of a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the practice of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely…
A 2007 article from Church History examines the role of fasting in French Reformed piety, and concludes with this: “Why did the fast acquire this remarkable status and power in the Reformed world, particularly in France? The response, in part, relates to Reformed Protestants’ deep reverence for Scripture and its…
In his recent book Travelling Heroes, Robin Lane Fox examines Greek travel in the eighth century BC, focusing on the Euobean Greeks who traded and settled throughout the Mediterranean. Fox argues, in the summary of Edith Hall, the TLS reviwer , that “these electrying Euobeans can explain much of the…
Some reflections in spired by a paper on the biblical theology of the city by a student, Lisa Beyeler. 1) Genesis 1-11 is often treated as a “prologue” to Israel’s history, but that tends to detach it as “natural history” as opposed to “redemptive history.” It is a preparation for…
The following is a Christological speculation, not a Christological affirmation. My student, Brad Littlejohn, has suggested, based on a study of the theology of “life” in the gospel, that the divine-human relation in Christ changes after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The humanity participates in God’s life from the…
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