Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Job appears in the Bible as a true story and it is regarded as such in other Scripture: As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the…
Thanksgiving is warfare. Gratitude is a weapon. Wield it well. Give thanks for the preparation. The hustle and bustle, the messy kitchen, the endless cleaning, the extra chairs, and stained tablecloths sing the song of hospitality. God desires that we prepare a place for friends and strangers, feasting and laughing,…
We often hear that, along with Leviticus, Ecclesiastes is the “most peculiar book,” lurking in the Bible’s back alley. 1 But it is high time that we retire this old dirge. God has concealed much gold here, therefore much glory is ours if we are careful to read Solomon’s wisdom…
1 Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? 2 Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth? Job 39 We have and we do, Lord God. Spring is calving season.…
For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh. - Exodus 35:2 The instructions for building the tabernacle end with a Sabbath command and the narrative about building begins with a Sabbath command, before…
High in the list of now forgotten sins is simony. It was not always so: the medieval schoolmen believed simony to be the worst of ecclesiastical crimes and waged a centuries long campaign to purge the Church of this financial and spiritual corruption. As the schoolmen robustly defined it, “simony…
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An addendum to my post at firstthings.com today: There’s a generational issue that the aging leaders of the religious right needs to be addressed in a serious way. Most of my students and younger colleagues do not identify in any way with the old religious right. They are anti-abortion and…
According to the Chronicler, Hezekiah is a new David. He “did right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his father David had done” (2 Chronicles 29:2). Like David in 1 Chronicles, Hezekiah organizes the priesthood and Levitical choir to reconsecrate the temple (2 Chronicles 29:3-36) and gathers…
Next door at the main First Things site, I offer my reflections on the import of Tuesday’s election: www.firstthings.com.
“John Calvin was no monastic.” Matthew Myer Boulton states the obvious ( Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation, and the Future of Protestant Theology , 28). Calvin is a critic of the monasticism of his time, and even criticizes the withdrawal of monks in earlier, better times. What’s not…
Matthew Myer Boulton argues that the reforms in worship inaugurated by Calvin were intended to establish a worship that “was in the first place a matter of verbal, catechetical, intellectual engagement with God’s word revealed in Scripture and expounded from the pulpit” ( Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation,…
In a review of Richard Sherlock’s Nature’s End: The Theological Meaning of the New Genetics (Religion and Contemporary Culture) in Touchstone , J. Daryl Charles responds to Sherlock’s claim that in both Thomas and Calvin “natural law in any of its forms is ultimately an inadequate moral guide.” The Calvinist…
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