Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. Acts 5:12-13 When Grandma needed healing, her children knew the…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
And Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah . . . And Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber . . . and Eber lived thirty-four years and became the father of Peleg . . . and Peleg lived thirty years, and became the…
Of course, the title should be something like, “The Fall of the Angel Who Came to be Satan,” but that and other more accurate titles are too cumbersome. The question is: who is Satan, and when and how did he become “Satan” (Adversary, Accuser) and the “devil” (slanderer)? By my…
In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…
This piece was originally published in 1989. 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…
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Leo Oppenheim ( Ancient Mesopotamia , 191-2) observed that the “difference that separates the sacrificial rituals in [Mesopotamia and the West] is the ‘blood consciousness’ of the West, its awareness of the magic power of blood, which is not paralleled in Mesopotamia.” Burning was another key difference: “The Old Testament…
Too much of the discussion of nature and the supernatural is conducted in the idiom of Aristotle rather than the Bible. Most obviously, for Scheeben, Rahner, and even de Lubac (though to a lesser extent), the issue is framed as a question concerning the constitution of human “nature” or the…
Israel was forbidden to eat serpent-like creatures who were in the curse-prosecuting dust, crawling on their “bellies” like the snake in the garden (Leviticus 11:42; cf. Genesis 3:14). Christians believe that was not a permanent prohibition. In the new covenant, all foods are available, even serpentine ones (Acts 10-11). Why…
Hosea (2:14-20) allegorizes the exodus as a love story. Yahweh lures Israel from Egypt to the wilderness, speaks to her heart, becomes her ‘ish (man) and no longer her Baal (lord, or Baal). Yahweh is promising to take Israel out to the wilderness for a second honeymoon, but that implies…
A. Buckler summarizes the evidence for what he describes as “non-Levitical” defilements in the book of Leviticus ( Studies in Sin and Atonement , 269): “In Jeremiah and Ezekiel idolatry defiled the land of God, and in Leviticus all the enormities of the Canaanites defiled the country and would have…
The late Mary Douglas observed in Leviticus as Literature (75) that the list of animal organs for sacrificial animals is very selective: “it is interesting to note how very few items of anatomy receive any mention at all. Conspicuously missing in these chapters is any express mention of neck, heart,…
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