Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God…
With the surprising discovery of the Nelda Boswell scroll historians have deciphered its contents and concluded that the apostle Paul returned to the region of Galatia shortly after he wrote the letter that we call Galatians. The evidence suggests that a number of local pastors, elders, and deacons, along with…
Second Temple Judaism was a form of covenantal nomism, according to E. P. Sanders’ terminology. This means that Torah-observance was a way of expressing loyalty to the Lord of the covenant who had graciously elected Israel. I think Sanders’ view (taken up in bits and pieces and with some modifications…
We often hear that the key to Christian obedience is thankfulness for what God has done. But the Bible stresses faith and hope much more than gratitude. The Baptist pastor and author John Piper has written, “Nowhere in the Bible is gratitude connected explicitly with obedience as a motivation. We…
One of the questions that is commonly asked about Tom Wright regards his teaching about how Paul uses the term “the righteousness of God.” Since Wright’s interpretation of the term in Paul’s epistles is commonly mentioned in passing but rarely analyzed, it seems like a good idea to explicitly spell…
If God promised a certain land to the seed of Abraham, saying that it would be theirs “forever” (Gen. 13:15), why do Reformed churches teach that the Jews permanently lost their right to the land? What about all these Old Testament “forever” promises and prophesies made to the Jews? How…
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In an essay on Poe in NYRB , Marilynne Robinson observes that “the horror that fascinated [Poe] and gave such dreadful unity to his tales is often the inescapable confrontation of the self by a perfect justice, the exposure of a guilty act in a form that makes its revelation…
Proverbs 6:16-20 lists seven things that God finds abominable and hateful. It’s a rich text. For starters, the “seven” stands out. God loves His creation since it is good; what He hates is a seven-fold inversion of creation. At the very least, we can say that the wicked person who…
The TLS review of the two-volume collection of The Poetry of Robert Herrick (edited by Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly) gives a brief review of Herrick’s reputation in the modern world. That reputation has been determined by attitudes to what the reviewer calls Herrick’s “gargantuan” appetite for the miniature. As…
John Milbank has written that John Duns Scotus is “the turning point in the destiny of the West.” Milbank focuses on Scotus’s notion of the “univocity of being,” which, according to Milbank, treated God and creation as encompassed by the larger, common reality of “being.” On the Scotist view, God’s…
President Obama wants European countries to do a better job of assimilating Muslims. Easy for an American President to say. Much harder for European nations to accomplish. George Friedman argues at Stratfor that “The current crisis has its origins in the collapse of European hegemony over North Africa after World…
Writing at Stratfor , George Friedman offers a sobering, pessimistic view of the future of Islam in Europe: “We are entering a place that has no solutions. Such a place does have decisions, and all of the choices will be bad.” At the moment, he admits, “It is difficult to…
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