Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The sin of Ham in Genesis 9 continues to elicit comment, since it seems mysterious. We read in 9:21-23 that Noah uncovered himself inside (the covering of) his tent, that Ham (entered the privacy of Noah’s tent) and saw his father’s (not “Noah’s”, n.b.) nakedness, that Ham told his two…
Recently the magazine Tabletalk published a series of essays against Calvinist theologian N. T. Wright. The black cover of this issue lets us know just how dangerous this man is. But how dangerous is N. T. Wright? Well, he’s dangerous to some people, but not to others. Let’s see: He…
You need to read Rob Rayburn’s defense of his presbytery to the PCA SJC (Standing Judicial Committee). If you’ve been out of the loop on this, that’s okay. But what has happened in the last few years is that people have made accusations against Peter Leithart, and in response the…
What does it mean to read the Bible as inspired literature? The method is not new nor is it uncommon in Dutch Reformed circles. Exegesis must be Christocentric, plenary (all the text serves a theological purpose), respect the context in God’s redemptive plan, and plumb the full literary depth of…
Reading in John Calvin’s sermons on 2 Samuel today, I came across this wonderful statement. This comes from a sermon preached on July 3, 1562, “The True Worship of God,” an exposition of 2 Sam. 6:1-7. Calvin is discussing the implications of the affirmation that Yaweh, the God of Israel,…
A great deal of confusion about the relative value of “virginity” and marriage can be avoided if one pays careful attention to the text of Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7. The two most important observations are: 1) that Paul’s specific recommendations are made because of the “impending crisis” (v.…
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In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron object to Moses’ Cushite wife. Miriam becomes leprous, is excluded from the camp, and restored on the eighth day. That is to say: The Messiah’s Jewish sister objects to the Gentile bride, and is cast out of the camp, but then she is cleansed…
Hicks again: He organizes his discussion of the New Covenant fulfillment of the sacrificial system in the phrases “life surrendered,” “life transformed,” and “life shared.” Reconciliation is made on the basis of life surrendered, blood shed, but that’s not the end point of the reconciling sacrifice. This enables him to…
FCN Hicks writes in his 1946 book on sacrifice that the burning of an animal on the altar was not destructive but transforming: “The offering is not destroyed but transformed, sublimated, etherealised, so that it can ascend in smoke to the heaven above, to the dwelling-place of God.” He cites…
Only God, Augustine argues in his treatise on music, acts on rational souls directly, “per seipsum.” Human beings operate on one another’s souls through intervening bodies, that is, through the words and other signs. God has arranged the world this way, he says, as a check on human ambition and…
Many translators and interpreters of Augustine’s de doctrina Christiana translate “signa data” as “conventional signs.” But there’s something to be said for taking the phrase literally (as some commentators do). The difference between naturalia and data, Augustine says, is that the latter occur by the will of a sign-user while…
Shakespeare recognized that something new was in the offing, but the actual situation of England and Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was far more complicated that Timon of Athens suggests. The gift-society to which Timon is attached was not being completely replaced, nor was the market the main…
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