Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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George Buchanan suggests a connection between Jewish asceticism and the expansion of purity concerns following the destruction of Solomon’s temple: “After the temple was burned in 586 . . . there was no longer a sacred place where the Lord could dwell in the land, undefiled. At that time celibacy…
On both the cover and the title page, a recent book on Jeremiah typology in Matthew is subtitled “The Rejected Profit Motif in the Matthaean Redaction.”
Augustine’s City of God created the Christian West because it enabled believers to think about a future of Christianity that did not depend on the persistence of Rome. Augustine relativized the story of Rome to the story of the City of God. How did he do that? Jesus taught him.…
In a 1997 article in NTS , Christopher Smith defends the five-discourse structure of Matthew against narrative critics who focus attention on the plot of Matthew. The problem with narrative approaches, Powell argues, is that as story Matthew doesn’t always work all that well: “it is a rather dull [story]…
Oscar JF Seitz has an interesting article in a 1960 issue of JBL . He connects the stones in the Jordan in Josh 4 with the stones that Jacob erects in Gen 28, which form the “House of God” in contrast to the false house of Babel. Bringing this into…
George Wesley Buchanan notes that ancient Jewish writings pay comparatively attention to Joshua. But, “For the church fathers, Joshua was very important - much more important than Moses. It was Joshua who led the army while Moses stood on the mountain and held up his hands. Joshua succeeded in leading…
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