Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1 Timothy 2:15) Years ago, the wife of a prominent American theologian recognized that even in Christian circles mothers were under a kind of social pressure to justify the worthwhileness of their…
I caught my five year old washing his hands again. He had already washed them several times that hour, so I asked him if he was okay. He told me he didn’t want to get “the virus”. That was before I had told him anything about coronavirus, but we did…
Very early in life, I developed the habit of walking and thinking and meditating. I came from a rather strict home, and the only way I could get out of the house at night was to walk the dog. So, I did. I would walk the dog for miles and…
From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us. The Fourth Deprecation from Thomas Cranmer's 1544 Litany 1 A deprecation, such as that above, is a prayer to be spared from disaster, its Latin root deprecari meaning to…
In the previous essay in this series, we saw that Jesus’ words about coming on the clouds were spoken on more than one occasion, first to the disciples on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24:30; Mark 11:36; Luke 21:27), then, a few days later, to the high priest and Jewish…
The following is excerpted from an essay first published at Church Life Journal . We are grateful to the editors for permission to repost here. The word “science” at its root means “to know” and the word “theology” at its root means “to think about God.” Can we know anything…
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W hatever else the 2016 Presidential cycle has accomplished, it has brought the chasm between nationalism and globalism into sharp relief. Many see this divide as the issue of the campaign ( Robert Merry ) or of the century ( Pat Buchanan ). It seems to be a choice we…
G enealogies occupy a large portion of the opening chapters of the Bible, tracing a line from Adam and Eve through ten generations to Noah. Noah fathers a new human race through his three sons, the 70 nations listed in Genesis 10. From 2 (Adam and Eve, Noah and Mrs.…
Prayers for the blessing of a house, adapted from this order of house blessing. A t the doorway : O God, heavenly Father, Lord of heaven and earth, protect our going out and our coming in. Banish demons, defeat all curses, and station your angels at this door. Shine the…
P astor Rich Lusk of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Alabama, points out that, narratively, the entire gospel of Mark takes place during the night. The sun sets in Mark 1:32 and there is no reference to a sunrise until 16:2, on the first day of the week when the women…
B en Lerner remembers his youthful play with half-understood words, and finds there a clue to the meaning of poetry: “I remember my feeling that I possessed only part of the meaning of the word, like one of those fragmented friendship necklaces, and I had to find the other half…
B en Lerner discovers the power of linguistic repetition in childhood games: “every kids know the phenomenon that psychologists call ‘semantic saturation,' wherein a word is repeated until it feels emptied of sense and become mere sound - ‘to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until the sound, by dint of…
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