Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After Elijah’s battered and depressed howling in the wilderness it must have seemed like the new prophet came eating and drinking. Which is a pattern we see again in the New Testament—John is explicitly identified with Elijah (Luke 1.17, Matthew 11.14), howling the truth in the wilderness that the people…
Reading Robert Conquest’s biography of Stalin 1 has opened new lines of meditation on Paul’s command in Colossians 3:9. But before turning to that, let me briefly indicate what Paul is not saying. He is not saying that there is no such thing as righteous deception, such as Jael practiced…
You won’t find wild lions today in Israel. But lions used to range much more widely than they do now, and in biblical times they were a menace that shepherds in Israel had to contend with. David did as a shepherd boy, and Amos—who “ was among the sheepbreeders of…
I would like to remedy a flaw for English speakers in the book of Genesis. A flaw that may seem innocuous, but we must remember where the devil lives...in the details. If we are to fear the Lord, it behooves our translation committees to ensure that the fearfulness of God…
While reading at my son’s baseball game this week, a mom from our school approached me and asked if I was reading Dante. I wasn’t, but our sons are both reading Divine Comedy in their sophomore literature class, so it was a reasonable question. What unfolded was a quick conversation…
In the first two essays in this series, I addressed the question of how the nations would learn about Israel’s Torah, in the second essay especially emphasizing the aesthetic aspects of Israel’s testimony. For we naturally wonder: How would people in Mesopotamia or Egypt, not to mention the rest of…
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A final installment of my review of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice .
It’s common to distinguish two different types of atonement theory - objective and subjective. Objective theories stress that the death of Jesus achieves something in itself; often objective theories stress the Godward dimension of the atonement, that Jesus has made satisfaction for sin or propitiated wrath by His death. They…
People who don’t know much bout the Bible still know what “knowing in the biblical sense” means. It’s assumed that it’s a common euphemism. But it isn’t. It’s used only in the first few chapters of Genesis, and then in 1 Samuel. Adam knows Eve, and she conceives Cain (Genesis…
At several points in Galatians, Paul distinguishes between the Abrahamic promise and the Mosaic Torah. He charges that his opponents want to return to the obsolete Mosaic system by forcing circumcision on Gentiles. Problem is, circumcision was given to Abraham , not Moses. It seems to be a sign of…
At The Week , Damon Linker poses some uncomfortable questions for advocates of same-sex marriage. “Do you support the right of consenting adult brothers and sisters to marry? If not, why not? What legal or moral principle justifies granting marriage rights to unrelated same-sex couples while denying such rights to…
Zadie Smith finds in a forty-foot beer ad on a nearby wall a summary of a Manhattan creed. Smith writes, “beer used to be sold on the dream of communal fun: have a beer with a buddy, or lots of buddies. People crowded the frame, laughing and smiling. It was…
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