Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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I’ve argued in several recent venues that Gen 15 is not the story of Abraham’s conversion. He was a worshiper of God before that time, and Hebrews 11 is explicit that Abraham was a believer from the time he left Ur (or when he left his father’s house). Unless we…
I’ve argued in several recent venues that Gen 15 is not the story of Abraham’s conversion. He was a worshiper of God before that time, and Hebrews 11 is explicit that Abraham was a believer from the time he left Ur (or when he left his father’s house). Unless we…
Accommodation is a way of handling the “problem” of theological language. Since God is the infinite Creator and we are creatures, He can speak to us only by “accommodating” His language to our capacities. This sometimes goes so far as to suggest that God has given us “divine misinformation” in…
Leon Wieseltier , not surprisingly, has a blisteringly negative review of Gibson’s film in the March 8 issue of TNR . Along the way, though, Wieseltier’s article is inadvertently insightful. Here is his description of the violence of the torture: “There is only the relentless destruction and dehumanization of a…
The Winter 2004 issue of The Wilson Quarterly also has an article on Darwin’s studies of earthworms, in which Darwin made innovative contributions. Darwin was inspired to study works after a visit to his uncle, Josiah Wedgewood: “Upon arriving, he scarcely had time to put down his hat before Wedgewood…
The Winter 2004 issue of The Wilson Quarterly also has an article on Darwin’s studies of earthworms, in which Darwin made innovative contributions. Darwin was inspired to study works after a visit to his uncle, Josiah Wedgewood: “Upon arriving, he scarcely had time to put down his hat before Wedgewood…
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