Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
It seems to be old news, but I was unaware of it until recently. Australian academics argued that mothers should be allowed to terminate the life of a newborn child. [i] Why would they promote such an idea? Because before the child is born it is not always possible to…
This is the second of two essays introducing Pascal’s Wager. Click HERE for Part 1. In “The Pop Star and the Mathematician” I gave an overview of the apologetic approach commonly called Pascal’s Wager. In that Wager, 17 th -century French mathematician Blaise Pascal argued that the choice between Christian…
This is the first of two essays aiming to introduce the reader to Pascal’s Wager. The second will address criticisms of the Wager. In the early 1990s, a perennially popular British pop star was interviewed on British television about his very public evangelical Christian faith. “What if,” the reporter asked…
Matthew 13 is about secrets. In this chapter, Jesus teaches eight parables and tells the disciples that they reveal the secrets of the kingdom (13:11). And much like Samson who both tells riddles and is himself a riddle that the reader must solve, so Jesus not only tells secrets but…
Click HERE for part One. THE TEXT AS TABERNACLE Creation – Initiation – Genesis (1 Samuel 17:1-11) The gathered armies not only remind the reader of Ebal and Gerizim, but also of the very reason that Israel was established (Creation) , set apart from the other nations by the circumcision…
What to do with Job’s Final “Friend,” Elihu Elihu is a strange character, at least in the sense of how and where he appears in the book of Job. Why does he not appear with the other three “friends?” Does his argument differ from any of the first three who…
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Ryan Leif Hansen doesn't think it's accurate to say that apocalyptic depictions of evil are “dualistic” ( Silence and Praise ). At the very least, the kind of dualism needs to be specified. Hansen writes, “evil is the result of a resistance to divine rule and order, and a transgressing…
John Knox's influence on the modern world has been enormous. He shaped the Scottish Reformed church, and so shaped the faith and culture of the corners of the world to which Scottish Reformed missionaries and pastors spread. Yet, it's been nearly thirty years since we've seen a major biography. As…
Berkeley is an anti-abstractionist. What is abstraction? Berkeley is basically taking on Locke, who argues (in Berkeley's telling) that our process of thought works something liek this: We have a particular thing that invariably has a combination of qualities. But those qualities are abstractions. We can see resemblances among things:…
According to TLS reviewer David Morgan, Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads is the fruit of teenage dissatisfaction with world history: “Frankopan tells us that as a teenager he became increasingly dissatisfied with the version of history he had been taught: essentially the ‘Rise of the West,' in which Greece led…
The gospel is all about teaching us to walk. Once we walked, zombie-like, in death and sin (Ephesians 2:1), but God raised us in Christ to walk in good works ( 2:10). We used to walk like the Gentiles, in darkness and dissipation, without God in the world. Now that…
Dickens's Hard Times takes place in Coketown, a coal mining town, focused on a small cluster of characters. There’s Gradgrind, a leading citizen and MP and education reformer. The Gradgrind children, Tom and Louisa, have both been trained according to Gradgrind’s modern educational methods. Bounderby is the manager of one…
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