Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…
Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…
In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…
Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…
Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…
Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…
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RW Southern describes the medieval church’s conception of its place in the world: “the church was much more than the source of coercive power. It was not just a government, however grandiose its operations. It was the whole of human society subject to the will of God . . .…
Yoder ( Body Politics ) suggests that “flesh” in the New Testament can refer to “ethnicity.” Citing 2 Corinthians 5, he writes that “Paul is defending the missionary policies, for which he was being criticized, according to wich on principle he makes Jews and Gentiles pray and eat together. What…
Galatians 6 is roughly organized as a chiasm: A. Bear one another’s burdens B. Boasting in oneself and not another C. Sowing and reaping; flesh D. Do good C’. Judaizers want good show in flesh/boast in flesh B’. Boasting only in Christ Jesus: crucified to world A’. I bear stigmata…
What did the Judaizers want? According to Galatians 6:12, they wanted to make a “good show” in the flesh. The verb for “making a good show” ( euprosopeo ) is a hapax in the NT and very rare elsewhere, but we might make a go at translating and interpreting through…
Matthew Continetti analyzes our cultural moment, and the likely impact of Obama’s policies, in a Weekly Standard piece. He says that Obama recognizes that the problem is a collapse of responsibility among cultural and political elites, following by a corresponding collapse of trust in those elites. Yet, Obama’s stimulus package…
“They pierced my hands and my feet.” The voice is the voice of David, but we know from the gospels that the words describe Jesus on the cross. Jesus is fixed to the cross by nails through his feet. Feet are associated with strength and dominion. A conqueror tramples his…
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