Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18:1-11 appears on the surface to be a straightforward, if somewhat unusual, narrative of Jesus’ arrest by officers of the chief priests and Pharisees accompanied by an apparently large group of Roman soldiers, all of them led by the betrayer, Judas. But there is much more here than what…
Why is the US embroiled in the Middle East? There are two primary answers: Oil and Israel. Both are fairly intractable problems, the latter in significant part because of the unique convergence of theology and politics that has forged American policy in the region. Dispensationalists insist that we must bless…
There’s a common theme that arises in the study of theologians James B. Jordan and Peter Leithart. It is this: Context matters. Details matter. This is God’s Word. The details are not arbitrary “filler” hiding the kernel of truth in the husk of the text. The husk and the kernel…
Perhaps the most fearful of all possibilities in the world is the possibility of betrayal on the part of someone who is in a “position of trust.” This, unfortunately, is the first block in what ought to be the foundation of every marriage in the world. Every woman has a…
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The way we talk about the world matters. Our doctrine of creation tells us that words do not simply reflect reality. They also shape it and the way we inhabit it. Among the world’s many language groups, the Church is distinct. She is called to name things with Scriptural language,…
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In her contribution to Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages , Beverly Mayne Kienzle summarizes Hildegard of Bingen's understanding of heaven and of the new Jerusalem. For Hildegard, “Jerusalem represents the vision of peace and salvation, the final resting place for those who perform good works in this life.” She…
In a 1998 article in VT, Giancarlo Biguzzi argues that John describes two different forms of idolatry in the book of Revelation. The first is the traditional idolatry of idols; the second is the beast idolatry that is the focus of the book. John “speaks explicitly of that given to…
“Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” The comparisons are not random, argues Aldo Regalado in Bending Steel : “By measuring Superman’s powers against those of the bullet, the train, and the skyscraper, these phrases offer clues that…
In a recent article, Loren Stuckenbruck makes this striking comment about the heavenly worship of Revelation 4: “John’s vision of a ‘Christ-less' worship in chapter 4 is so different from chapter 5; indeed, it is different from the visions described in the rest of the book in which Jesus plays…
The last time we had a Rodin revival was during the 1960s, writes Jed Perl. He seemed to capture the revolutionary 60s “ambiguous, contradictory, and conflicted” relation to tradition. Rodin is enjoying something of a revival again today, and Perl thinks it is for much the same reasons.” Despite his…
Near the end of her book on The Heavenly Book Motif , Leslie Baynes notes the “negative attitude about writing that Plato’s Socrates expresses in the Phaedrus ” is absent from early Christianity. For early Christians, “Words are ephemeral and disappear as soon as they are spoken, but writing remains.…
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