Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In our first essay in this series ( part 1 ), we saw that Proverbs 30 opens with a puzzle, a cryptic sentence that challenges the reader to search out a matter in order to gain understanding. "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory…
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…
1. The Blessed Hope "Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Titus 2:13 I was recently asked how I as a postmillennialist would preach on "The Blessed Hope." This is often a sticky question, because postmillennialists believe that…
1. Jeroboam and Ahab After Solomon died, the people came to his son, King Rehoboam, and asked for tax relief. Rehoboam refused to give it, and indeed told the people that he was going to tax them even more severely than his father had. At that point, with the blessing…
One aspect of truth is unity. It was Truth Incarnate who prayed for the unity of His people in John 17, which certainly makes unity a priority for them as well. In one sense, we know by faith that the Church is always invisibly unified in Christ, but there is…
Mr. Paul Miller of Vancouver writes that he is not persuaded by my remarks on Luke 4 on " The Son of Joseph ." He calls attention to Mark 6:1-6, where Jesus came "to His own part of the country," taught in the synagogue, and astonished many. The people said,…
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Jerusalem is named 13x in Matthew’s gospel, the last of them in 23:37 where the name is doubled in Jesus’ lament (the city’s name is spelled differently in 23:37). Both at the beginning and end, Jerusalem is troubled by the coming of Jesus: All Jerusalem is upset with Herod at…
Matthew mentions Sodom three times - in 10:15 and twice in 11:23-24. In the second, He says that the cities that have refused to repent when He did miracles will be judged more harshly than Sodom; in the first, He says that those who reject His disciples will be subject…
James Wood is always illuminating, but never more so than when he’s giving a book a sharply negative review, as he does with Updike’s recent Terrorist (reviewed in TNR July 3). My favorite line: “When Ahmad [the terrorist of the title] speaks, he sounds like V. S. Naipaul; but when…
James Wood is always illuminating, but never more so than when he’s giving a book a sharply negative review, as he does with Updike’s recent Terrorist (reviewed in TNR July 3). My favorite line: “When Ahmad [the terrorist of the title] speaks, he sounds like V. S. Naipaul; but when…
It’s a commonplace of liberal theology that Jesus is a great teacher, but no more. Jesus is certainly a teacher in Matthew’s gospel, but David Bauer points out that the only people who call him rabbi are strangers or opponents (8:19; 12:38). Oh, yes, and Judas (26:25, 49). Disciples, those…
Louis Dupre writes, “Shakespeare’s comedies, the accomplished masterpieces of this playful oscillation [between appearance and reality], leave the viewer utterly confused about what must count as real and what as illusion. The theatre here parodies a real-life fear of deception concerning the true nature of the outside world. The constantly…
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