Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Bible depicts Man’s transformation from beas t to priest in and through Jesus Christ. Two sets of people have their garments designed by God in the Torah: Adam and Eve and priests (of which the High Priest’s garments garner most attention). The first garment is beastly, while the second…
I became the pastor of Westminster Bible Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky soon after completing my Ph.D. in church history. On paper, it was the ideal church for me. Even the name, I thought smacked of my preferences: the Westminster Confession with idealistic Biblicism. I didn’t know it had been,…
Why do we believe in the resurrection of Jesus? It itself, it is utterly unbelievable, as the two disciples on the road to Emmaus also concluded (Luke 24:19-24). But why is it so unbelievable? Are there not many stories of a dead man or woman coming back to life? Stories…
In the first installment of this two-part essay, we provided a rough outline of a thick theological account of Christian hope. We concluded with mention of important critiques of such traditional views on hope, that by orienting Christians to place their ultimate hope in God and the future consummation of…
Dare we hope in the midst of “ negative world ”? The idea of the “negative world” has recently served as a helpful framework for many to come to terms with the fact that Western societies (particularly the United States) are aggressively turning against their Christian roots and moral values.…
In his prologue, Luke tells us that his gospel history is an “orderly account” (1:3). Although generally chronological, time is not the only or the main organizing principle for his history. To argue for Luke’s main theme would take up too much space, but instead I want to explore one…
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Evangelicals generally classify interpretations of Revelation as futurist, historicist, idealist, or preterist. For futurists, the book of Revelation describes the events leading up to the end of the space-time universe, the final coming of Jesus. Futurist interpretations need not be pre-millennial, but they often are. Historicist read Revelation as an…
Our head is the governing part of our body. We think in our brains, and our brains send signals through the nervous system to the rest of our bodies. It's no accident that “head” is an ancient and still current symbol of authority and rule: Head coach, Head of School,…
Commentators have used social scientific theories and models to try to explicate the social setting of biblical books and their authors. Bruce Malina has been a leading figure in applying these models to Revelation. We can get the general idea from his Social Science Commentary on Revelation , co-authored with…
Atonement theories abound. Christus Victor says Jesus triumphed over Satan; sacrificial theories say that Jesus offered Himself as a vicarious sacrifice; recently, a number of theologians have emphasized the corporate, ecclesial dimensions of the atonement. All true. We don't need to choose among them. Revelation 12:11 makes that plain: “They…
I previously commented on RJ Snell's The Perspective of Love , which offers “natural law in a new mode.” Snell was recently interviewed by Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio, and the interviewed revealed an important feature of Snell's natural law theory - its formalism. Snell emphasized that natural law…
At the center of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about three duties of Jewish piety – alms, prayer, and fasting. Regarding the last, He says, “when you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites, for they render their faces unrecognizable in order to be…
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