Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Gambling The Bible nowhere condemns gambling, and so we need to be careful in our assessment of it. Let me begin by making a strong case against gambling. Then I will surprise most readers by pointing out that gambling may not always be sinful. The reader should bear in mind…
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991). Reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Michael Crawford, a…
A close supporter of Biblical Horizons asks whether it is proper and wise to get involved in all the boycotts that Christians are being asked to observe today. She raises the point that Paul’s advice about eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to the discussion. I think she is…
Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in the fourth year of his reign, which was 480 years after Israel came out of Egypt, the year A.M. 2993 (1 Kings 6:1). Seven years later, in the year A.M. 3000, the Temple building was finished (1 Kings 6:38). The…
Several months back, a candidate for ordination was being examined for entrance into the Presbytery of which I am a member. The candidate had a good deal of trouble with the exam on the sacraments, stumbling badly as he tried to define the "nature of the sacrament." Apparently in an…
Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book, The Struggle for America’s Soul , Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow presents a typical, though hypothetical, case study: Mabel Miller. Mabel lives alone, thousands of miles from her family. She grew up in a Baptist Church, but now, approaching 65,…
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So far as Scripture is concerned, the marriage of Adam and Eve was the first, and the last, nude wedding. As soon as Adam sinned, he and Eve made aprons, and later the Lord replaced those with animal skins. Clothing is mercy, hiding the shame of sin. But clothing is…
Once he points it out, you see it everywhere. In Lot’s Daughters , Robert Polhemus analyzes the Lot Complex, a mirror-image of the Oedipal Complex and nearly as universal in Western cultural imagination. He traces the interpretation of the story of Lot and his daughters from Genesis to the Reformation,…
Trust in any circumstances is a paradox. On the one hand, trust requires intimacy. We grow in trust by sharing things with a trusted friend that we would not with others. Trust demands that protective veil be drawn between those allowed “inside” and those kept “outside.” Yet trust requires also…
In the second year to Yo’ash son of Yo’achaz king of Yisrael Reigned-as-king ‘Amatzyahu son of Yo’ash king of Yehudah. A son of twenty-five years he was in his reigning-as-king And twenty-nine years he reigned-as-king in Yrushalaim. Now the name of his mother Yeho’adayn from Yerushalaim. And he did the…
There are some confusing twists in 2 Kings 14:1-16. The chapter begins by announcing the beginning of the reign of Amaziah son of Joash of Judah. He is described as an upright king, walking in the ways of his father Joash, though he is not a king of Davidic caliber.…
In his books, Ephraim Radner offers numerous profound insights into the complications and implications of a divided Christianity. Near the beginning of Hope Among the Fragments , he points to some of the dangers of post-Reformation efforts to “denote” the church -that is, to describe the church as “something that…
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