Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my last essay, we saw how consumer culture has gutted the familial category necessary to understand the church. When a consumer visits a church, he expects another service-provider, such as a hospital or a restaurant. He doesn’t understand the role of men in ministry, and thus, not the role…
First time visitors to our church sometimes express their surprise that children, even the youngest, participate with their parents in the entire worship service. Many congregations created an expectation for the parents (and children) of Sunday School or Child Care being available during the entire worship service or during the…
Quantifying the Love of God “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ~ John 3:16 This most beloved verse in all the Bible was spoken by the Savior himself to Nicodemus. As…
While The Lord’s Prayer enjoys wide recognition throughout the Church, its richness and depth may be unrealized due to a lesser familiarity with, what I will argue is, its primary inspiration: the Tabernacle. There, Christ’s intent can rightly be discerned. The Prayer’s methodological correction to the Jews and Gentiles wasn’t…
The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church Last time we saw consumerism, having canalized its attitudes in our culture, shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has eviscerated the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the…
The ignoble Jayber Crow can stir your appetite for the noble. It’s the simplicity of a good ol’ Port William boy that builds the charm of the book. In fact, the elitists in Port William receive the harshest blows and severest outcomes, as they should. But before delving into the…
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An English visitor to the Netherlands in the 1650s, Owen Felltham, remarked that the Dutch were “in some sort Gods, for they set bounds to teh Sea; and when they list let it pass them. Even their dwellings is a miracle. They live lower than the fishes. In the very…
Richard Popkin ( The History of Scepticism ) writes of a crisis of skepticism in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: “With the rediscovery in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of writings of the Greek Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus, the arguments and views of the Greek sceptics became part of the philosophical…
Erasmus and Luther eventually squared off regarding the freedom of the will, but in earlier letters Erasmus cautions against judging Luther too hastily or harshly and pushes the burden of proof on Luther’s opponents. Erasmus was, after all, a reforming Catholic. For instance: “I do not suppose myself learned enough…
Isaiah tells Israel to prepare for the coming of Yahweh by leveling mountains and raising valleys (40:3-5), and when Yahweh comes the mountains melt away (Psalm 97:5; Micah 1:4). But the angel of Yahweh tells Zechariah that the mountains will give way to Zerubabbel (Zechariah 4:7), a true son of…
A couple of notes on the first vision of Zechariah 5, and then translation. 1) Verse 3 is difficult to translate, and is somewhat surprising. The scroll represents, the angel says, the curse going throughout the land, but the effect of the curse in verse 3 is not negative and…
Some notes on Zechariah 4, with a rough translation following. 1) Structurally, the passage is most clearly organized around the exchanges between the interpreting angel and Zechariah. Most obvious is the parallel between verses 4-5 and 11-13; together with the angel’s response, these questions form a frame around a central…
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