Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…
The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…
In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…
These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…
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W illiam Johnstone ( 1 & 2 Chronicles, Volume 1 ) argues that the Chronicler depicts Israel's warfare as “sacramental.” The brief account of the war with the Hagrites in 1 Chronicles 5:18-22 is an early example. “Israel is the agent of the LORD'S rule on earth,” he writes, adding…
A faith has been shaken, illusions shattered, pieties punctured,” writes Damon Linker at The Week . The faith is progressivism, which Linker characterizes as liberalism-plus. Progressives believe in rights and all that but “add something else: a quasi-eschatological faith in historical progress that gives the movement its name. This belief…
T o Roman pagans, Judaism was a solvent of the bonds linking religion, household, and polity. Tacitus wrote, “Those who come over to their religion . . . have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and…
P aul's Damascus road conversion from persecutor of the church to apostle is well-known. His life story figures his hope for Israel, that the people who killed the Lord of glory would see the pierced Shepherd and repent. Peter's transition from persecutor to apostle is less obvious, but no less…
E vangelicals have long been dismissed by Catholics, Orthodox, and confessional or mainline Protestants as “biblicists.” Evangelicals are still being dismissed as biblicists these days, but more often than in the past the charge comes from others within the broadly Evangelical world. It's not always clear what's being condemned when…
H ope Jahren's memoir of a life in science, Lab Girl , has three sections: “Roots and Leaves”; “Wood and Knots”; “Flowers and Fruits.” She intersperses autobiographical chapters with vivid, personified descriptions of the life of plants. “No risk,” she writes, “is more terrifying than that taken by the first…
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