Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions…
Stones External and Internal The modern practice of dismantling the Bible into a shambles of documents authored in response to disparate historical events rather than viewing it as a unified testimony inspired by God is a surefire way to miss what is actually going on in the text. This failure…
King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by Zerach. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end,…
What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. It's can serve as a summary of Paul's letter to the Romans, and throws some important light on the themes of that letter. Paul begins his sermon with a quick…
Iago as Tempter The answer to our first question — whether or not Othello is really great tragedy — has already pointed the way to the answer for the second question — Was Othello a noble Moor or a fool? The two questions, of course, are necessarily related. The fall…
When Adam McIntosh was ordained as Pastor of Saint David’s Church (CREC) in Houston on June 11, 2017, it was the culmination of decades of preparation. Adam is the product of two continents and three Christian traditions. Born in Paducah, Kentucky, he lived his early years partly in Jericho, where…
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Considering the roots of contemporary "new nationalism," David Goldman contrasts the biblical roots of Anglo-American nationalism with the mythical roots of German nationalism. He suggests that Christianity faces a "conundrum," since, unlike Judaism, its spiritual and ethnic origins are not identical: Christianity "sees its spiritual origin at Golgotha but its…
John Frame is engaged in a battle over "classical theism" or "scholasticism" as articulated by James Dolezal (about whom I've written here ). Leave the terminology aside. Frame gets to the heart of the question, and gets it right: "The main content of Scripture is not that God is simple…
Isaiah reads like a “greatest hits” of Messianic prophecy. Isaiah prophesies the birth of the Messiah: "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7). "He prophesies the fact that the Messiah will…
Christian conceptions of prophecy are sometimes a mish-mash of ancient and modern conceptions. Plato thought prophecy a form of divine madness, somehow analogous to the madness of poetry and love. In the Phaedrus , Socrates says:"The divine madness was subdivided into four kinds, prophetic, initiatory, poetic, erotic, having four gods…
At the climax of John’s prologue he announces the beginning of the gospel: The Word became flesh. John has already told us a good bit about that word. The Word was “in the beginning.” John refers to the opening verse of the Bible, where we learn that the Creator is…
"The power of procreation and the power of conviction together confer on us, thanks to marriage, the combine strength of making epochs." So writes Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy ( In the Cross of Reality , 212). Marriage infuses new life into society, the possibility of peace. Without marriage, societies "cool down" into…
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