Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
During one of my AAPC lectures I read a portion of Richard Mitchell’s provocative little book The Underground Grammarian . Here’s the portion I read: The mind is a rudderless wanderer blown here or there by any puff of breeze. If I mention watermelons, you must think of watermelons; if…
This is the donation thank-you essay for January 2008. Our studies in the Psalms go out month by month in response to donations. I’m putting this one up here as an example, and also because the version I actually mailed out contained several egregious arithmetical errors! So, here is the…
Part 1: Introduction The collapse of the Western tradition in the United States, seen in the hostility to Christianity in government and education, and the elimination of “traditional” or “canon” learning from our institutions of middle and higher learning, provides a crisis and an opportunity for serious believers at the…
While “forgiving oneself” is widely accepted in the secular world as a legitimate and needful thing to do, Christians are rightly suspicious. After all, God is the one who forgives. When we sin against other people, we need to seek their forgiveness, not our own. Nevertheless after looking at Vine’s…
This was originally published as HIStory in the column, “A Pastor’s Perspective” in Ligonier Ministrie’s Tabletalk Magazine . I am not sure of the date but it was probably published in 1999 or 2000. Quick! What’s the basic message of the Bible? Summarize it in as few words as possible…
A Brief Explanation of What a Presbytery Is & Why Pastors in Presbyterian Denominations are Members of Them A belief in the primacy of the local congregation of the Church, I think, reflects the gut feeling of most North American Evangelicals. As a result, the form of Church government universally…
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1 Chronicles 22 records a lengthy speech from David to his son Solomon. The very setup suggests an analogy with the book of Proverbs, in which Solomon gives instructions to his son the prince. For the Chronicler, Solomon learned to teach wisdom by receiving it from David. That formal hint…
I n his 1892 Lectures on the Apocalypse (29–30), William Milligan argues that “the symbolism of the Revelation is wholly and exclusively Jewish.” He illustrates: Even “the crown of life” in chap. i. 10 is not the wreath of the victor in the Grecian games, but the Hebrew crown of…
S hakespeare's Sonnet 103 laments the limits of language to capture the thing it describes. “Look in your glass,” the poet says, and you will see a face that overwhelms “my blunt invention quite.” The reality dulls the poet’s lines and disgraces him. And it would be a sin to…
The paragraphs below are taken, with slight changes, from a column I wrote at Firstthings.com in July 2015. The questions are even more pressing since Trump's election. I mmigration has always roiled under the surface of American politics. It’s the price of being America, a land subdued by outcasts and…
A fter David sinfully takes a census of Israel (1 Chronicles 21), the threshing site where he builds the altar that arrests the plague becomes the temple site (1 Chronicles 22:1). David begins preparations for the temple. First, he gathers the “strangers” (Heb. ger ), non-Israelite residents of the land…
S hakespeare's Sonnet 73 embodies the excessiveness of poetry. It’s possible to summarize the poem in a brief statement: “I’m getting old. I'll die. Love me while you can.” Why so belabor the point? One effect of belaboring through fourteen lines of iambic pentameter is to link aging with cosmic…
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