Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…
A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…
The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…
The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…
I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…
Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…
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Allison notes the frequent ancient association of Moses with asses. According to Diodorus Siculus, “When Antiochus . . . made war against the Jews he entered the sacred shrine of the god, where only the priest is allowed to go. In it he found a stone image of a thick…
Waters also says, “Leithart also forthrightly rejects the Reformed doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer.” I don’t do that either. What I have questioned, however, is whether we have exegetical grounds for distinguishing “imputation” as an act of reckoning from “justification” as a distinct declarative act.…
In his new book on the Federal Vision, Guy Waters claims, “It appears, then, that Leithart has called into question the historic Reformed doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity.” I don’t. But Waters is right to sense that I’m interested in ways of formulating the doctrine…
Allison offers a series of interesting connections between the early chapters of Gen and the early chapters of Ex: 1) Israel is “multiplying” (Ex 2:2) in the way that God commanded the human race to multiply (Gen 1:26-28), concluding, with some help from Samaritan texts, that MOses is another Adam.…
In his book on Mosaic typology in Matthew, commenting on Matt 5:1-2 in particular, Allison reviews some of the Jewish literature that suggests that Moses sat enthroned on Sinai. The idea was based on Deut 9:9, where Moses says “I remained (YASHAB) on the mountain forty days and forty nights,”…
Interpretation is, we’re often told, a matter of explaining what’s in the text. Only eisegetes talk about what’s not already there. Discussing Matthew 1:1, Dale Allison offers this, much more accurate, alternative: “The interpretation of this line can be nothing other than the unfolding of what it not stated.” More…
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