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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INTRODUCTION Sex and wisdom are closely intertwined in the OT. Wisdom and Folly are both pictured throughout the early chapters of Proverbs as women – one honorable and blessed, the other seductive and ultimately deadly. Further, the Song of Songs is included among the wisdom books. In some way, skill…
Jehoram the son of Ahab is a whiner. He musters his army to fight against rebellious Moab, forges an alliance with Jehoshaphat of Judah and the king of Edom, and then marches South to attack Moab. When they get into the wilderness, they run short of water. As soon as…
Robert Pogue Harrison, The Dominion of the Dead. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 208 p. Tradition, Chesterton remarked, is the “democracy of the dead.” For Robert Pogue Harrison, Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature at Stanford University, this form of democracy at least is inescapable. In The Dominion of…
Translation, 2 Kings 7 And said ‘Eliysha’, “Hear the word of Yahweh, Thus says Yahweh, ‘According to the time tomorrow a seah of fine-flour by a sheqel And a double-seah of barley by a sheqel in the gate of Shomron.” And answered the officer who was to the king -…
Psalm 90: A thousand years in the Lord’s sight are like yesterday when it passes by, as a watch in the night. He sweeps them away like a flood, and they fall asleep. In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew. In the morning it flourishes and sprouts…
And said the sons of the prophets to ‘Eliysha’ “Look, please! The place which we ourselves [are] living there before your face [is too] confined for us. Let us go/walk, please, unto the Yarden, and let us take from there each one beam And let us make for ourselves there…
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