Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We've all heard it, too often to count. The Apostle Paul was a misgynistic homophobic pro-slavery authoritarian, probably a repressed homosexual himself, the first Puritan - Puritan here defined as "someone who cannot sleep if someone in the world is having fun." To call this a caricature is too generous.…
Some of our forefathers believed in reading/singing the psalms in order. Today, when the psalms are even used at all, they tend to be used randomly, though sometimes tied to a church calendar or to the pastor’s sermon. The Bible does not bind us to any particular practice, but there…
". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…
The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…
When viewed as an allegory of biblical history, the controversial third act of Danny Boyle’s gripping sci-fi adventure is transformed from an illogical divergence into a blinding revelation. The following analysis contains spoilers for the movie “Sunshine.” The Creation Week is the elementary type that orders everything God has said…
In my last post , I told you the story of my current desire to understand philosopher D.C. Schindler’s metaphysical work. With this post, I start in to the venture. I begin by reflecting on what it is to be a thing. This matter always makes me laugh, and makes…
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Stott notes that 1 John 4:19 indicates that the church’s great characteristic is love, not fear. That is, it should be. Is it? Hardly. Read the next piece of direct mail you get from a Christian advocacy group. Look at the listings in a Christian book catalogue or bookstore. Analyze…
Perfect love casts out fear, John says. But the Bible repeatedly exhorts us to fear God. There’s fear, then there’s fear. How do we tell the difference? The difference is in the direction our fear moves us. Adam feared God, and hid in the garden. Wrong fear drives us away…
Post-Kantian thought cannot make room for undistorted revelation of God in history. History, creation, is necessarily a distorting medium. Is this just a form of modalism? Doesn’t this just create an unbridgeable modalist gap between God-in-Himself and God-as-revealed? Isn’t this just saying that God is not what He appears to…
Time was when you could despise the body and love God, or despise God and love the body. One could be an ascetic or a hedonist. Then God got Himself a body. Despite efforts to retain this choice (Nietzsche, flagellants), the incarnation made the ancient choice of ascetic or hedonist…
Time was when you could despise the body and love God, or despise God and love the body. One could be an ascetic or a hedonist. Then God got Himself a body. Despite efforts to retain this choice (Nietzsche, flagellants), the incarnation made the ancient choice of ascetic or hedonist…
Shaftesbury recognized the stark difference between his own rational Deity and the vulgar bodily and crucifiable Christ. Francis Hutcheson, building on Shaftesbury, tried to conflate the two. Hutcheson was a Christian, a Presbyterian professor of moral theology. Shaftesbury loathed Christ. But which of the two was the better friend of…
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