Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
While controversies over the writings of Paul continue in various corners of the intellectual globe, the word of God given through Paul and his scribe and all of the church’s interpreters and translators over the last two millennia is still readily available to the lofty and the lowly. Paul, as…
The second in a series of studies in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 22:30: A man shall not take his father’s wife, and shall not uncover his father’s wing (Hebrew: kanaf ). There are a number of unusual features in this law that mark it out from the previous context, indicating that it…
The texts of Christianity have been slowly at work, under the power of the Holy Spirit for 2000 years now. If we could be magically transported back into the world of two millennia ago, modern Americans would be shocked at the cruelty of that world. There was no concern for…
The Story of the Gadarene Madman is told in all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-37). Jesus ventures into a Gentile area when He passes over the Sea of Galilee. Upon disembarking from his boat, he is immediately met by a demon-possessed madman. Upon meeting Jesus, he…
Part 1 of a multi-part series of studies on Deuteronomy 22:30-23:8. Eric Auerbach, in his classic work on Western literature, devotes his first chapter to contrasting Homer with the Bible. Of Homer, he writes of the “need of Homeric style to leave nothing which it mentions half in darkness and…
Trinity House Fellow James B. Jordan will be a speaker at an International Conference on Biblical Symbolism that will be held in Seoul on Monday, May 27 in 2013. He will address "The Importance of Biblical Symbolism and Symbolic Interpretation of the Bible." The conference will have three other speakers…
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Franz Rosenzweig saw that philosophy proceeds only through humility, which means through speech and dialogue rather than abstract thought: “The ‘speaking thinker’ cannot anticipate anything: he must be able to wait because he depends on the word of the other: he requires time . . . The ‘speaking thinker’ speaks…
Thanks to my friend Alex Trochez for stimulating the following line of thought. According to Jordan’s count (confirmed by my own), the phrase “shepherding wind” occurs twice in Ecclesiastes by itself (1:17; 4:6) and 7 times with the word “vapor” (1:14; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 16; 6:9). In addition, the…
Solomon pursued knowledge and wisdom, and concluded that the pursuit was no more than vapor and shepherding wind, and besides the more he knew the more pain and grief he suffered (1:17-18). There is so much in this wispy world that we cannot know: Whether the result of our works…
John Thackara ‘s In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World , a brief for more human, and more eco-friendly, technology and economy, is full of insights that challenge much of the conventional wisdom about the “information age.” A sampling: We do not live in “the ‘weightless’ new economy we…
Solomon captures the aporia of beginnings in Ecclesiastes 3:15: “That which is has been already, and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.” This not only restates “there is nothing new under the sun” but also suggests that the search for an origin…
INTRODUCTION Solomon begins Ecclesiastes talking about the regularities of the natural world (1:3-11), and in chapter 3 turns to the regular rhythms of human life (3:1-8). THE TEXT “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to…
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