Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Although the events are, of course, not perfectly parallel, Luke in his gospel intends us to connect Jesus’ birth from the womb and His re-birth from the tomb. Luke 1:27 introduces us to Joseph and in verse 30 we learn that his betrothed wife was named Mary. An angel appeared…
The apostle Matthew is also known as Levi son of Alphaeus. While not much is said about this man, the few things that are told us are significant. Matthew in Greek is Matthaios and comes from the Hebrew name Mattithiah, or Mattith-Yah, "Gift of Yah(weh)." Matthew’s other name is Levi,…
Theologians often speak of "special" and "general" revelation, or of "natural" and "supernatural" revelation, or of "word" and "deed" revelation. While there are many worthwhile insights in these discussions, particularly in the discussions in Cornelius Van Til’s Introduction to Systematic Theology , I have not found any that satisfied my…
Ezekiel’s 430 Years In Ezekiel 4, the prophet is told to begin his ministry by setting up a model of Jerusalem and lying on his side and prophesying against it. He is to do this for 430 days, a day for a year. 390 days are against "Israel," and 40…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
The End of Jehoiakim’s Reign We have seen that Jehoiakim rejected Jeremiah’s prophetic warnings at the beginning of his reign. Let us now make a year-by-year survey of his reign down to its end. In the spring of 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish. In the summer, he…
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In his discussion of penitential seasons, Doug Wilson also offers this argument: “what gospel is implicitly preached by the practice of drawing out the process of repentance and forgiveness? It is a false gospel. Now I am not saying that fellow Christians who observe their church year in this way…
Saussure says that speakers know almost nothing about the history of the words they speak, and this means that “the linguist who wishes to understand a state must discard all knowledge of everything that produced it and ignore diachrony. He can enter the mind of speakers only by completely suppressing…
Brueggemann again. He writes as if power were necessarily oppressive, but with some qualifications he has a profound point: “The replacing of numbness with compassion, that is, the end of cynical indifference and the beginning of noticed pain, signals a social revolution . . . . The capacity of feel…
In medieval iconography, John the Evangelist is depicted as an eagle, and this portrait expresses the opinion of the early church fathers, that John wrote a “spiritual” gospel which has a “loftier spiritual purpose” than the other gospels. John is the eagle because he soars “aloft to contemplate and proclaim…
Doug Wilson recently preached a sermon arguing against the adoption of “penitential seasons” of Advent and Lent. He makes a number of arguments and his reservations are worth considering. Here I want to respond to one of his arguments (from his sermon notes, online at Christkirk.com):”if we were to adopt…
Walter Brueggemann ( Prophetic Imagination ) cites Hannah Arendt’s claim that Jesus’ offer of forgiveness was his “most endangering action because if a society does not have an apparatus for forgiveness, then its members are fated to live forever with the consequences of any violation. Thus the refusal to forgive…
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