Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christmas is a joyful season, but for many it turns into something else. Instead of joy, it is full of disappointment and unhappiness. Instead of an occasion for family fellowship, it becomes an opportunity for opening old wounds, reigniting old arguments, giving new life to rancor that should have died…
The Temple of Time The “covenant-literary matrix” of the Bible is not a pattern imposed upon the text, but the internal logic of its arrangement. This fundamental structure, functioning at multiple levels simultaneously, is a ceaseless reiteration of God’s primary theme. It is an algorithm forged in the furnace of…
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus, Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. [1] That the author of Kings should date the start of the building of the temple from the Exodus is noteworthy. In Exodus 15:17, in Moses’ song following the…
Philip Schaff, a German Reformed theologian, states in The Principle of Protestantism that the material principle of Protestantism is “the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by the merit of Christ alone through faith.” This is the core message of the Church which leads “to the abandonment…
“Religion” is an attempt to create or build a tower with a top, or to build a temple that is self-contained. The story of The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is the story of mankind’s attempt to create a world that is self-contained and does not need God. All…
In the first essay in this series, I presented a case for dating Matthew before AD 70, contrary to the present scholarly consensus. In this essay, I intend to present cultural, personal, ecclesiological, and theological arguments for a very early date for Matthew. [1] The cultural argument concerns literacy in…
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I n her study of digital memory ( When We Are No More ), Abby Smith Rumsey distinguishes between data storage and memory. What makes memory important is not simply its capacity to store fact: Rather, “it is the ability for information to be useful both now and in the…
T he late 10th century was a period or feuding, pillaging, and general disorder. In their editorial introduction to The Peace of God , Thomas Head and Richard Landes cite the Peace of God as an effort to reign in in the chaos: “Leading regional bishops convoked councils of their…
P eter King is an avowed Antimodern, a reactionary with a sensitivity to the unintended consequences of any effort at reform (much less revolution) and skepticism about progress. Reactionaries don't necessarily have to move to be reactionaries. When progress is the reigning creed “anyone can be a reactionary, including trade…
D ouglas Wilson frequently uses the powerful phrase “fellowship of the grievance” to describe communities formed by disgruntled people. Resentment is a powerful force for joining people together - at least for a time, until they discover they also have grievances with one another. Complaint is one of the most…
L. Michael Morales's 2015 Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? is a “biblical theology of the book of Leviticus,” but Morales doesn't turn his full attention to Leviticus until he is one-third of the way through the book. That's as it should be. Building on his earlier The…
I Chronicles 12:23-40 describes David's king-making at Hebron. The Chronicler lists the number of mighty men from each tribe, those who constitute a host, a set of constellations, around the king as Yahweh's angels are a host around his throne (vv. 23-38). There's nothing about an anointing or crowning ceremony.…
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