Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the 48th year, the third month, and the fourteenth night, while I slept in my bed, I was taken in vision to Xanadu and set upon a high hill. Looking to the west, I saw a large building, surrounded with gardens and fountains, walks and gravestones, and a bell…
‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others) 1 claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend…
Part 2: The Enoch Factor Back in Open Book 21 we discussed "The Enoch Factor." Because that was several years ago (May 1994) and many people have begun reading this letter since that time, we shall return to the subject here and expand what we wrote at that time. After…
Day 6. The sixth day provides the creation of land animals and of humanity. As we saw above, the second day spills over to the first half of the third day, for only at that point did God say that it was good. Similarly, it seems that the fifth day…
During the past two decades, the "quest of the historical Jesus" has entered a new phase. The first incarnation of the quest was rudely shaken by the publication of Albert Schweitzer’s classic Quest of the Historical Jesus , easily the most devastating and funniest work of New Testament scholarship ever…
At the 1997 Biblical Horizons Summer Conference, the Rev. Jeffrey Meyers presented a series of remarkable lectures on the gospel of Mark. Among his many insightful comments, he suggested that the second gospel continues where the first gospel ends; Matthew ends with Jesus saying "Go" (Matthew 28:19), and Mark’s shows…
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The Pharisees are the surly elder brother in Jesus’ parable, and surely they expected that the father would be equally surly - greeting his returned son with harsh rebukes and scolding rather than with joy. How did they miss it? Israel’s whole history demonstrated the opposite. Israel’s history revealed Israel’s…
1 John 2:23 says that whoever denies the Son denies the Father as well, and vice versa - whoever confesses the Son confesses the Father. What’s the logic here? Is John assuming that Jesus is the mediator who makes a way to the Father, so that denying him closes off…
It’s common among evangelicals to say that the gospel is about God solving the tension between His justice and His mercy. As a just God, He must punish sin; as a merciful God, He seeks to save. The cross combines the two. At one level, I have no problem with…
I’ve commented before on the sequence of 1 John 1:7, which moves from walking in the light to fellowship with one another, to cleansing by Jesus’ blood. The presence of “fellowship with one another” between walking in the light and cleansing is striking. Equally striking is the conditional introduction to…
Reviewing several recent books on the Christian Right in the current issue of First Things, Ross Douthat has this to say about Rushdoony: “What he has instead are the Christian Reconstructionists—the acolytes of the late R.J. Rushdoony—who are genuine theocrats, of a sort, and who also rank somewhere between the…
Reviewing several recent books on the Christian Right in the current issue of First Things, Ross Douthat has this to say about Rushdoony: “What he has instead are the Christian Reconstructionists—the acolytes of the late R.J. Rushdoony—who are genuine theocrats, of a sort, and who also rank somewhere between the…
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