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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B ach's Cantata 80 is an elaboration of Luther's “Ein Feste Burg.” The second movement of the Cantata is a duet of soprano and bass, the former singing the second verse of Luther's hymn while the bass sings an embellishment promising the victory of God. The bass part begins and…
A ccording to 2 Chronicles 23:11, the people put a “crown” on the head of seven-year-old Joash, the Davidic scion who represents the restoration of the Davidic kingdom after an interregnum. The noun for “crown” ( nezer ) is an unusual one. As William Johnstone points out ( 1 &…
T he Economist reports on the racial gap in American infant mortality rates: “Black babies born in America are more than twice as likely as white ones to die before their first birthdays.” For some time, “infant mortality has generally declined at a faster rate for blacks than whites, leading…
The TLS “Poem of the Week” was James Fenton's “God, a Poem.” It opens with this complaint to God: A nasty surprise in a sandwich, A drawing-pin caught in your sock, The limpest of shakes from a hand which You’d thought would be firm as a rock, A serious mistake…
I n his contribution to Joy and Human Flourishing , Jurgen Moltmann observes that modern theories of religion trace it to “misfortune.” Marx is representative: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature.” Religion must be useful, must meet a need, “because everything in the modern world must be necessary;…
R obert Solomon argues ( The Joy of Philosophy ) that “Vengeance is the original passion for justice. The word ‘justice' in the Old Testament virtually always refers to revenge.” This isn't isolated or primitive: “throughout most of history the concept of justice has been far more concerned with the…
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