Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Summary In what follows, I will consider the “year-stamps” employed in Scripture, i.e., statements of the form, “Such-and-such an event took place in the Xth year of Y.” In the process, I will suggest some ways in which the Biblical narrative might relate to events in the extra-Biblical world, though…
In the first essay on the parable of the Prodigal Son, I suggested that the problems commentators and others encounter in interpreting Jesus three-part parable are not accidental. These are not just problems in our ignorance of cultural background. They are intentional features of the stories —stories designed to poke…
The story of the Prodigal Son is perhaps the most well-known story in the Bible. As others have observed, it may also be one of the most misunderstood. In two short essays, I will point out features of this story that are commonly neglected, aspects of Jesus’ parable that might…
The parable of Lazarus and the nameless rich man is not an independent story. It is part of a long context that begins in Luke 15:1, where Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners and the scribes and Pharisees grumble. In response to their hardheartedness, Jesus tells a three-part…
The Bible is written so that even when a reader cannot pick up on what might be deeper or more detailed aspects of a text, there is virtually always a message to be heard. In the ancient world, where the “reader” of Scripture would likely be a church official facing…
The distinction between garden (or vineyard) and field begins in Genesis 2. This relates to the ordering of the formless world. Plants of the field are contrasted with the garden planted by God in Genesis 2:5&8. Later on, under the Old Covenant the Israelites will be required to keep their…
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Are we living in a time of world-revolutionary change? Impossible to say, of course, but there might be some hints contained in the developments of the last millennium. Rosenstock-Huessy notes that Western man has been formed by periodic world-historical revolutions since the 11th century: Gregorian (11th), the Reformation (16th), Puritan…
William Cavanaugh suggests that globalization represents a false catholicity, a unification of the human race organized around consumption and Hollywood blockbusters. That’s certainly one legitimate angle. On the other hand: The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous, and Cain and Nimrod built cities long before David…
George L. Mosse’s Fallen Soldiers (Oxford 1990) is a fascinating study of the “Myth of War Experience” that developed between the French Revolution and came to a climax in World War I and its aftermath. Mosse develops a number of intertwined themes: the rise of volunteer armies after the French…
Rosenstock-Huessy notes the difference between animal birth and human childbirth, the main difference being that human parents remain with children after the birth: “marriage means to go from the blind act of the moment, through the whole life cycle to its most opposite point the childbirth,” and this shows “that…
With nationalism at its height in the nineteenth century, the common practice of giving children biblical names was a check on nationalist idolatry, a reminder that the child was part of Christendom, not merely of France, Germany, England, etc. Rosenstock-Huessy puts the point dramatically: “When biblical names disappeared in Europe…
In their Science & Grace (Crossway 2006), Tim Morris and Don Petcher helpfully define a law of nature as “God’s sustaining of, or man’s description of, that pattern of regularity that we observe in nature as God works out His purposes towards His own ends in HIs covenant faithfulness, through…
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