Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Matthew 8-9 records three clusters of miracles, interspersed with snatches of Jesus’ teaching about various aspects of discipleship. Just as the Sermon on the Mount displays the authority of Jesus’ Word in teaching, these chapters display the authority of Jesus’ Word over sickness, uncleanness, the creation, demons, and death. In…
Since the early 1980s, several of the conservative Reformed Churches have debated and wrestled with the issue of paedocommunion (infant communion). The PCA and the OPC assigned study committees to examine the question, both of which produced useful reports both in support of and against the position. Though the debate…
(This issue of Biblical Chronology concludes a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in previous posts. Click on the category link of "Biblical Chronology" above to see previous issues. Did Shalmaneser Know Jehu? Allis writes: "The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser contains, in addition to brief accounts of the…
Movies Movies as an art form have a powerful impact because they take place in a dark room, on a large screen, with no distractions, and because they entail many of the arts: music, acting, choreography, design and color, etc. A movie can be an overwhelming experience for a young…
The Hebrew word translated as "grain offering" or "cereal offering" is minchah . Like the translation of `olah as "burnt offering," the translation of minchah as "grain offering" is somewhat deceiving, since minchah does not refer to grain or cereal. In liturgical contexts outside of Leviticus, in fact, the word…
"He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces" (Leviticus 1:6). The normal word ( `olah ) that is translated as "burnt offering" and "whole burnt offering" has nothing to do with either burning or wholeness. It is the noun form of a verb meaning "to…
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John Smart’s Tarantula’s Web , on the circle of intellectuals around John Hayward and TS Eliot is, according to Lachlan Mackinnon , an unrivaled “demonstration” of “just how ‘unpleasant’ it might have been ‘to meet Mr Eliot.” Hayward and Eliot were “extremely” intimate Mackinnon writes, but they fell out over…
Slash me with a glance and purge me with your gaze. Consume me in your flaming eyes, and set my heart ablaze.
A friend and former student, Pastor C.J. Bowen, writes in response to my recent discussion of Jesus as “new Phinehas.” The remainder of this post is from C.J. Having recently preached through the early chapters of Acts, I was bothered by the interpretation that the early church was unfaithful to…
How can Yahweh’s name be profaned? Can holiness leak out? In a recent Princeton dissertation ( This Is the Thing that the Lord Commanded You To Do ) Bryan Bibb notes that some qualities depend on the response of a community; they are socially constructed qualities: “personal qualities (like authority…
As many commentators have pointed out, Leviticus 25-26 form a single literary unit. John Bergsma ( The Jubilee from Leviticus to Quram , 82-3) calls attention to the inclusio on “Mount Sinai” (25:1; 26:46), and lists eight literary links between the two chapters, including a common concern for Sabbath, the…
The Void is one of the essential dimensions of humanness, argues Esther Lightcap Meek ( A Little Manual for Knowing , 35). The Void is the recognition that we might not be, which can arise from curse, betrayal, or from “a brush with death or fear, depression or danger, an…
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