Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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Every time it surges, Islam surges explosively. When it gets going, it makes the globe wobble. Robert Wilken ( The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity ) writes that nothing during the first millennium of Christianity rivaled the rise of Islam; it was as an “unexpected, calamitous, and…
Before he converted, Boris, khan of the Bulgars, peppered Pope Nicholas with questions about how conversion would affect Bulgar life. Among other things, Boris asked about the custom by which the Bulgar king ate by himself on his throne while everyone else, including the royal family, ate at a distance.…
The Abraham narrative of Genesis begins with a promise of land and descendants like the sand and stars. It ends with a down payment on the promise. Abraham sojourns in the land, but after Sarah dies he negotiates the purchase of a burial site (Genesis 23). It is the only…
“The Federal Reserve is not your friend,” writes Judy Shelton in The Weekly Standard . Its policies encourage “unjustified risks in pursuit of monetary gain,” give incentives for “speculative conniving instead of virtuous endeavor,” offers reasons to borrow beyond our means to repay. Friends don’t do that to friends. The…
In his The Law and The Elementa of The World An Exegetical Study In Aspects of Pauls Teaching (1964), AJ Bandstra helpfully describes the Greek term stoicheion / stoicheia as a “formal” term. By that he means that it has “by itself no specific content” but “receives its ‘specific content’…
In the midst of a sharp political critique of the American South of today, Garry Wills has some sharp observations on the contribution of the South, especially its literature, to America: “A sense of the past helps explain why America’s southern writers were to the rest of America, in the…
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