Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I've pastored a very rural church for well over a decade. Our town has about 1,000 people and will never grow until Jesus returns. 38 people attend our worship on Sundays. Here's a quick list of what we’ve done to grow our church, and what I’ve done to survive pastorally.…
Thanks for sharing so honestly about your current crisis of creativity. I totally understand and relate to that; it’s happened many times in my musical life thus far, and I’ve begun to accept it as a normal rhythm of the creative process. I actually went through a serious dry spell…
The Broken Stones of Israel At Sinai, the tablets of the Law of Moses were broken and restored. The Old Testament is a history of “new covenants,” including that promised in Jeremiah and fulfilled in Zechariah. Ultimately, the vertical Oath and the horizontal Sanctions met in the death of Jesus…
Woe to the sinful nation. Woe to those who enlarge their estates and build their portfolios. Woe to the drunks. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to the proud who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to Congressmen who pass unjust laws and to…
The interpretation of Romans 7:7-25 is notoriously difficult. Good scholars disagree on many aspects of the passage, but the central interpretative difficulty concerns the identity of the “I.” Is Paul referring to himself? Is Paul referring to himself pre- or post-conversion? Does the “I” refer to Adam? Is the “I”…
You board the Metra train at Arlington Heights station one afternoon, heading to downtown Chicago for some sight-seeing. As the train departs from the station, a man in jeans, a striped t-shirt, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap enters your train car, and begins asking to see each passenger’s…
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A s a techno-lagger, I came late to the smart phone world. Every sentient adult who has used a phone over the past decade saw everything I’m seeing long ago. Still, it might be worth putting it to writing. Smart phones and other sorts of communication devices have of course…
In his commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans (60-1), Peter Stuhlmacher argues that Paul’s use of hilasterion in Romans 3:25 refers not to a “propitiation” but to a “place” of atonement. The import is that Jesus’ death radically alters the terrain of atonement. Stuhlmacher writes that through Christ’s redemption…
In his essay in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology , Nehemia Polen explores what light the letter to Hebrews throws on the purposes and rituals of Leviticus. Contrary to many popular understanding, the focus of Leviticus is not forgiveness, but rather has to do with the maintenance…
Emil Brunner acknowledges that “The message of the Cross is the central mystery of the scriptural Gospel.” In his view, it “is not the task of theology to explain these mysteries: for if explanation were possible these mysteries would only be fortuitous mysteries, and thus not real and divine.” But…
PT Forsyth responds to the charge that the church is slow to accomplish her mission because of her unfaithfulness with this neat inversion ( Work of Christ , 21): “Do you really find that the deeper you get into Christ and the meaning of His demands Christianity spreads faster in…
Teju Cole pays tribute to Krzysztof Kie?lowski’s 1996 film Red in the December 22 issue of The New Yorker . The film tells a small, quiet tale, a film of “hushed intensity” and conveys “the sense of inner workings not fully grasped.” A woman in Geneva, Valentine, runs over a…
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