Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…
The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…
The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…
There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…
Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…
I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…
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Advent is the season of coming, since we commemorate the coming of God’s Son in flesh. Advent is just as much a season of giving, since we glorify the God who so loved that He gave. Distorted as it can become, Christmas giving is a profoundly right way to celebrate…
Trinitarian musings arising from some private discussions with a group of friends. (Note: this is a revised version of my original post). According to classic Trinitarian theology, will is an linked to nature and, since there is a single divine nature, there is also a single divine will. That’s true;…
Paul’s announcement of the reign of grace seems innocuously theological. But there was already supposed to be an age of grace operating in the first century, inaugurated by the divine benefactor, Augustus Caesar. James Harrison ( Paul’s Language of Grace in Its Graeco-Roman Context (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2,…
In a 1999 article in Neotestmentica , Stephan Joubert observes that Paul teaches that God’s grace enables the Corinthians to experience autarkeia , “self-sufficiency” (2 Corinthians 9:8). The word is a common one in Stoic ethics, describing the placid contentment of the sage regardless of the external circumstances. Joubert thinks…
In his classic study of The Search for the Perfect Language (The Making of Europe) , Umberto Eco summarizes Dante’s proto-Chomskyan argument about the effects of Babel on the forma locutionis , the innate grammar with which Adam was created. Eco says, “It seems most likely that Dante believed that,…
Every year, one of my students presents on a section of Calvin’s Antidote to the Council of Trent , and I’m impressed again with how Calvin responds to Trent’s claims about baptism. The first decree of the fifth session includes this statement: “Whosoever asserts that this sin of Adam, which…
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