Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the beginning, this was home. The world, I mean. Creation wasn’t just a series of unconnected events, a flashy display of building prowess. Yes, creation was intended to give God glory—which I guess you could say means that the creation was supposed to show the greatness—the weight —of God.…
We think we know. God is a stern Rule-Maker who has a bit of an anger management problem. Or, God is the indulgent Daddy in the sky. Or, God used to be a stern Ruler, but he got nice. Christians don't believe any of that. Christians say the one God…
Unfortunately today, baptism seems so… tiny . It’s actually… cute (maybe sweet?) when it’s given to a child. A little baby, a small gathering of people, a little bowl of water, tiny drops sprinkled upon the little baby’s head followed by a small applause and a short prayer. How… small!…
Early on in the history of the church, Christians understood that the 1st century Jewish practice of meeting for prayer at set times of the day was a good and biblical practice to continue. We find references to this in several places in Scripture. In Acts 3 we find Peter…
Editors’ note: For those interested in a review of Richard Hays’s latest book, see here . Richard Hays is a renowned New Testament scholar. The professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School originally studied English literature, giving his reading of Scripture a pronounced literary sensibility. He’s perhaps best known…
As many commentators point out, Genesis is structured by 10 uses of the word toledoth , "generations." The word means something along the lines of "begotten things," and the toledoth statements head the various sections of Genesis. When Genesis 2:4 announces "these are the begettings of heaven and earth" and…
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A fter sharing a breakfast of fish at the shore of Tiberius with his disciples, Jesus speaks directly to Peter (John 21). Peter had denied Jesus three times; now Jesus confirms his love three times. Peter denied Jesus at a charcoal fire in the high priest's court; now he's restored…
I n the closing chapter of Heaven on Earth , Richard Landes considers the import of the two major apocalyptic threats of the early twenty-first century—anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and global jihad warming (GJW). Both seem to portend TEOTWAWKI, the end of the world as we know it. What we…
I n his study of The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature , Keith Booker observes that “much of the history of recent utopian thought can be read as a gradual shift from utopian to dystopian emphases, while utopian thought itself has come more and more to be seen as escapist…
W e are apt to think of a deeply religious person as a ‘true believer,' writes Howard Wettstein in The Significance of Religious Experience . In the Hebrew Bible, though, “there is no expression . . . that corresponds to our term, ‘believer.' The phrase that comes closest is ‘…
R ichard Landes's Heaven on Earth is a study of millennial apocalyptic movements, that is, movements that share a belief in “ a millennial vision of the world transformed, and an apocalyptic belief in that transformation’s imminence ” (22). Though the movement he explores share a belief in the transformation…
According to Richard Landes ( Heaven on Earth ), traditional societies are organized by a “prime divider,” a boundary between elites and commoners. He follows Ernest Gellner in called these “agro-literate” societies, since that phrase names two key technologies that mark the division. More generally, “Elites construct prime dividers along…
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