Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Suppose that the theistic evolutionists are right, and that the Big Bang Hypothesis is correct. In that case, God originally created a Primeval Atom, which then exploded and congealed to form the present universe. Now, if you had arrived on the scene one quintillionth of a second after God created…
According to Galatians 3, Abraham heard the gospel when the Lord promised that "all the nations shall be blessed in you." Paul quotes here from Genesis 12:3, but the context puts an odd slant on the Old Testament text. Galatians 3 starts with a series of rhetorical questions about the…
Ephesians 2.15: ton vomon twv enotwn en dogmasin katargesas, ina tous duo ktise en autw eis ena kainon anthrwpon, poiwn eirenen having annulled the law of the commandments in decrees, in order that He might create in Him[self] the two into one new man, making peace. The above translation is…
In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…
James Jordan has pointed out in Through New Eyes and elsewhere that the Mosaic system of worship comes to an end with the dismemberment of the tabernacle in 1 Samuel 4-6. Because of the sins of Eli and his sons, that priestly family is cut off and the ark is…
In a significant essay in the 19 April 1999 issue of The Weekly Standard, entitled "Wars of Hatred and the Hatred of War," Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., points out a significant shift that seems to be taking place in the modern world. He begins by asserting his thesis, that a…
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Paul Griffiths ( Decreation ) ably defends a minority position in the history of theology, namely, that angels are not bodiless, though they are “immaterial.” They are “living creatures with discarnate bodies of energy” (125). To defend this point, he offers this brilliant little analysis of the meaning of “matter”…
The final sequence of Revelation begins with the fourth “in Spirit” vision of John (21:9-10). From that point to the end of the book, the “Lamb” is mentioned 7 times (21:9, 14, 22, 23, 27; 22:1, 3). The Lamb is entering His Sabbath, the wedding feast with His Bridal city.…
Elijah's life history tracks closely with that of Moses. When he appears on the scene, he curses Israel with drought, then flees the land (1 Kings 17). Like Moses after he killed the Egyptian, he goes out from his people and lives among Gentiles. (Elijah's sojourn in Zarephath also linked…
When the seventh trumpet blows, heaven opens and the ark of the covenant appears (Revelation 11:19). We're in the Most Holy Place. Before the ark-throne are two heavenly signs - a laboring woman and a dragon. It's Zechariah 3, with Satan and the priest Joshua before the throne, Satan accusing.…
Following a long tradition, Paul Griffiths says that creatures who come from nothing are constantly inclined to return to the nihil . We “remain uneasily in being, hovering over the void from which we came” ( Decreation , 142). Venerable as this is, it's misconceived. For starters we can ask…
As Andrei Zorin argues in a TLS piece this week, Tolstoy intended to defy novelistic convention in writing War and Peace . His book was not a novel, and Tolstoy refused the easy resolutions of the novel genre. Zorin agrees that there is something to this: “In one of the…
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