Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Pastor John Piper has written on why he (probably) won’t be voting in this month’s presidential election. Reading his argument, I couldn’t help wondering if voting has a cultic significance to Piper. As much as self-admitted Christian Trump-voters are characterized as cult followers, Never Trump Christians often strike me as…
Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself… –– Victor Frankenstein In Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Victor Frankenstein is a young intellectual with an excessive thirst for glory and worldwide acclaim. Having lost his beloved mother, Frankenstein works to…
“Our daughter is just like a baby hippo,” my wife says to me as I hang my coat up. “After we watched a video of hippos munching whole watermelons, she sat down to her own watermelon lunch. She gobbled them up with those same puffy cheeks and big eyes.” My…
Christian compromise with Nazi Germany’s political leadership is well documented in painful detail. There was resistance, but it was the exception rather than the rule. German Christianity was terribly timid. Leadership lacked spiritual strength because of serious Biblical ignorance and unbelief. But it was not just the leaders. Christians in…
Can a Christian vote for Donald Trump? That might seem like a surprising question given the widespread evangelical support for the President. Yet for a growing number of evangelicals, to vote for Trump is to endorse his moral repugnancy and further discredit gospel-believing Christians who have sold their birthright for…
Thirty-eight years is a long time to take getting somewhere (Deut. 2:14). You could just ask anyone in the unfaithful generation of people whom God brought to the edge of the Promised Land the first time under Moses—if they were still alive, that is (Num. 14:22-23, 32-35). But there are…
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Isaiah 35:1 says that the wilderness will be glad. This could be a simple personification of a wilderness blossoming and coming to fertility. But in context, the passage is talking about the return from exile. Perhaps the wilderness is the desolated land of Israel, which rejoices at Yahweh’s return and…
Augustine distinguishes natural and given signs. The first signify with no intention of signifying, while the latter signify because a person has an intention to signify. The distinction, at least in part, is a distinction of will. Peirce’s typology of icon, sign, and symbol depends on a different criterion. Peirce…
Why did Yahweh determine that Judah had to be punished after the reign of Manasseh? Other kings of Judah, beginning with Solomon, had promoted idolatries of various sorts. Manasseh was uniquely evil, but there is another factor. Throughout 1-2 Kings, the narrator reports that the Kings of Israel followed the…
There is a recurring pattern in Kings, one that matches the structure of embedded narratives I’ve discussed in a forthcoming article in the Tyndale Bulletin: Solomon builds and dedicates the temple, 1 Ki 6-9 Lord appears to Solomon, warning about proper use of temple, 1 Ki 9 Son’s kingdom divided,…
Masaru Emoto. The Hidden Messages of Water. Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Worlds Publishing, 2004. 157 p. Convinced that Hamlet was entirely correct that there is more in heaven and earth than philosophy (or theology) dreams, I am, out of principle, more credulous than most, but even I am a skeptic about…
Psalm 120:7: “I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.” We have seen in the sermon today that the church is an army, and our service to God and His kingdom is militant, as we deploy the weapons of righteousness, faith, salvation, the Word of God…
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