Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…
The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…
In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…
These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…
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The account of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-13) is arranged in a chiastic order: A. Two witnesses, olive trees, lampstands, vv 3-4 B. Devouring enemies with fire from mouth, v 5 C. Authority to shut up heaven, turn waters, smite earth, v 6 D. Beast from abyss makes war, overcomes,…
“ W ho’s afraid of modern art? ” asks Daniel Siedell. He answers, “I am.” As critic and curator, Siedell is passionately devoted to modern art. It frightens him because that is what it’s supposed to do. Munch’s The Scream , for instance, doesn’t just express the painters own anxieties.…
I n the terrible trial scene in Till We Have Faces , the gods strip away layer after layer of Queen Orual’s self-justification, and when she has been laid bare, she finally has something to say to them: “Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was…
In his 1959 Luther the Expositor , Jaroslav Pelikan remarked on the tendency of church historians to neglect the main thing in theologians of the past: “Entire histories have been written - histories of a whole section of the church, of an era in church history or of a major…
According to Augustine, all of Constantine’s achievements were gifts of God ( City of God , 5.25): He “gave to the Emperor Constantine, who was not a worshipper of demons, but of the true God Himself, such fulness of earthly gifts as no one would even dare wish for. To…
Donald Norwood reminds us in Reforming Rome that the Reformers were eager for a ecumenical council to resolve the conflicts sparked by the Reformation. In 1560, Calvin writes, “In order to put an end to the divisions which exist in Christianity, there is need to have a free and universal…
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