Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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Today, Christian thinkers suggest that certain versions of divine simplicity are at odds with Trinitarian doctrine. I'm one of them. It's not a new thought. At the very beginning of his explicit discussion of the Trinity, Thomas Aquinas asks whether there are processions in God ( ST I, 27, 1).…
Aaron and his sons have been washed, invested, and anointed. They’ve offered a purification offering, an ascension offering, and the ram of ordination. Blood from the ram has been smeared on their right ear lobes, their right thumbs, and their right big toes, consecrating their ears, hands, and feet to…
Marxism, John Gray once slyly commented, didn't emerge from a Russian monastery. It's a Western faith, transplanted to Russia and China and elsewhere. Marxism doesn't grow naturally in these exotic soils. Its program and promise depend on a specifically Western history of industrialization, which produced the great antagonists, the bourgeois…
Aaron and his sons offer three offerings during the ordination rite: A modified form of the priestly purification offering ( hatt’at ); an ascension offering; and, at the climax, the “ram of fillings” (Exodus 29:22; ‘ayil millu’iym ). It resembled a peace offering, insofar as Aaron and his sons eat…
Hope isn’t some optional add-on to life. To flourish, we need hope. Desperate hope, hope against hope, hope in the face of hopelessness, is the narrow path of life for human beings on the way. Without hope, without some expectation or drive for the future, we are imprisoned in the…
Acts 2 is a typologist's dream, or nightmare. It's overstuffed with Scripture. Pentecost arrives. Of course, Pentecost was an Old Testament feast, 50 days after Passover. It was the beginning of the harvest, a firstfruits festival, which fits Acts 2, since it’s the firstfruits of the harvest of the nations.…
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