Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I believe hymnals should be shorter than they are. Much shorter. 100 hymns at most, let’s say. I imagine that this will be a hard one to swallow for most of my readers, so I will attempt to bolster my argument as best I can. I can’t think of any…
Joshua is never called a king in the Bible. Yet while lacking the title, Joshua possesses the trappings of biblical kingship to a degree that it seems warranted to consider him a royal figure. There are lots of reasons for thinking this. In a 1981 Journal of Biblical Literature article,…
God speaks. He is not silent. He has designed humanity for reception of such communication and also to speak on His behalf. This speaking is not simply happenstance. It is not just a curious quirk about humanity. It is intrinsic to who we are that we speak and shape the…
One evening, years ago, home from college for Christmas break, I dreamt that I was playing the piano, passionately and well, in the church sanctuary beneath the parsonage in the renovated mansion in rural New Hampshire where my father was the minister. It was something of a lucid dream because…
I’m a big worrier. Always have been. Some of my earliest memories are of being anxious to the point of getting sick, sometimes for trivial reasons. My mind moves a million miles a minute, wondering what will happen in 5 minutes, or tomorrow, or next week, or in ten years.…
“The sun had gone up on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. And the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD from heaven, and he devastated those cities and the whole valley and all those dwelling in the cities and the growth of…
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At the Atlantic, Adam Grant describes the findings of his study, Give and Take , where he compiled “evidence that being a ‘giver’ who enjoys helping others can be inefficient in the short run but surprisingly productive in the long run.” He elaborated, “Givers tend to start out with lower…
The Spirit is the Spirit of creation, hovering over the waters. The Spirit is the Messianic Spirit, equipping the Servant of Yahweh with wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, filling His breath with the power to kill and make alive. But the Spirit who brings new creation out of the…
Each of the seven letters in Revelation 2-3 corresponds to a period of Israel’s history. Jesus’ identification, the assessment of the church, and the promised reward all link together in a complex Old Testament scheme. Believe me for now, because I’m not going to try to prove it. But the…
Jesus judges everyone according to his works (Revelation 2:23), and the letters to the churches present a refined assessment of works. In Ephesus, they do their works but they (or at least the angel) has left his first love. Repentance means returning to the works that they did at the…
What sort of religious vision animates the novels of Cormac McCarthy? That’s the question Todd Edmonson examines in a comparative study of McCarthy and Wendell Berry, Priest, Prophet, Pilgrim . It’s not an easy question to answer, given McCarthy’s famous reticence about himself and his beliefs. The man won’t even…
In her book on The Jews under Roman Rule (225-6), Mary Smallwood observes that the Jews of Alexandria sought to retain their cohesion not only by synagogues but through formation into quasi-civic organizations known as politeumata : “A polieteuma was a recognized, formally constituted corporation of aliens enjoying the right…
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