Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to hardships in his ministry in Asia, specifically Ephesus (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 15:32; 2 Corinthians 1:8; 4:8-12; 6:4-5; 11:23-25). However, the multiple imprisonments Paul mentions are not fully reflected in Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry — Luke only records a…
After all these months pondering integration, I have come to the point of believing that the dynamic of integration just is the real at its heart. Everything that is real or comes to be real is a dynamo of integrative coherence. I also believe it is true that the real…
Have you heard of Tom Holland? Not the young Tom Holland of Spiderman fame. No doubt you’ve heard of him. I’m referring to the middle age Oxford-trained historian who recently wrote Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind . (Both Hollands are British, so you’ll be forgiven for confusing them.)…
This article was originally published in 1990. (The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what…
This article was originally published in 1990. In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on…
On several occasions the gospels record Jesus teaching that only a few will be saved (Matthew 7:14, Matthew 22:14, and Luke 13:23). Careful readers of Scripture should begin to wrestle with how these passages found in the gospels fit together with other passages that teach that many will be saved…
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It doesn't take long for a pastor to discover the discrepancy between need and resources in his ministry. Needs are infinite, or seem to be so. The pastor's resources of time, energy, and skill are radically limited. It's a dilemma, and one ripe for frustration, guilt, and burn-out. The pastor's…
In his recently-released Paul & the Gift , John Barclay argues that the concept of “grace” is multi-faceted and “susceptible to ‘perfection' (conceptual extension) in a number of different ways” (6). He takes the notion of “perfection” from Kenneth Burke, who describes it as the inclination to “draw out” a…
Erynn Masi de Casanova observes in her forthcoming Buttoned Up that since the surfeit of books on white collar conformism in the 1950s, “mainstream social science has largely ignored the world of white-collar work and the identities of the people who perform this work.” And in particular they have ignored…
Ross Douthat has recently observed that Trump's popularity is a sign that neither of the major parties represents the complexities of political opinion in the United States. No party and virtually no candidates are both pro-life and pro-Obamacare. But many citizens are both. This should be kept in mind during…
Donald Trump calls Jeb Bush a “nice” but “low energy” man. Whatever Bush does, Trump wins. Suppose Bush tries to get more energetic. That proves Trump was right, because Bush had to step it up. More, it keeps Trump in control, because Bush is dancing (more energetically) to Trump's tune.…
Wars are supposed to be moments to renew national solidarity, but Agnieszka Monnet argues that “all wars since WWII have been failures, as far as regenerating a collective sense of purpose and national cohesion is concerned: so-called successful ones, such as the Panama Invasion and Persian Gulf, as ineffective in…
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