Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Gambling The Bible nowhere condemns gambling, and so we need to be careful in our assessment of it. Let me begin by making a strong case against gambling. Then I will surprise most readers by pointing out that gambling may not always be sinful. The reader should bear in mind…
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991). Reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Michael Crawford, a…
A close supporter of Biblical Horizons asks whether it is proper and wise to get involved in all the boycotts that Christians are being asked to observe today. She raises the point that Paul’s advice about eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to the discussion. I think she is…
Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in the fourth year of his reign, which was 480 years after Israel came out of Egypt, the year A.M. 2993 (1 Kings 6:1). Seven years later, in the year A.M. 3000, the Temple building was finished (1 Kings 6:38). The…
Several months back, a candidate for ordination was being examined for entrance into the Presbytery of which I am a member. The candidate had a good deal of trouble with the exam on the sacraments, stumbling badly as he tried to define the "nature of the sacrament." Apparently in an…
Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book, The Struggle for America’s Soul , Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow presents a typical, though hypothetical, case study: Mabel Miller. Mabel lives alone, thousands of miles from her family. She grew up in a Baptist Church, but now, approaching 65,…
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“Love is as strong as death, and jealousy as Sheol.” A fine sentiment, but what does it mean? Maybe it means that love is as inevitable as death. We’re all going to die; our last resting place in this creation is the grave. Perhaps Solomon says that love is inevitable…
In his contribution to Searching the Scriptures , Roger Aus examines Mark 14:25 (Jesus says, “I will never again drink the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”). He takes its as a Nazirite vow to refrain from wine until…
Stephen Turley ( The Ritualized Revelation of the Messianic Age ) doesn't think standard treatments of Paul's baptismal formula in Galatians 3 get the point. The standard options - ex opere operato and ex opere operantis - share the “common false assumption: they both place pistis and baptizein in a…
Early in Revelation, the Father is described as the one who “is and who was and who comes” (Revelation 1:4). 1:8 suggests that the Trinity might be described in the same way. The Trinity is not a God immune to time; the eternality of the Trinity is the eternality of…
Hal Foster's Bad New Days is an assessment of the past twenty-five years of European and American art. Foster organizes his treatment under five themes - Abject, Archival, Mimetic, Precarious, and Post-Critical? One will notice that “beauty” is absent. Today's avant garde makes Francis Bacon look tame. One of Foster's…
Psalm 136 is a dialogic Psalm in which the second line of each verse is the same: “For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” The God of lovingkindness is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the Creator of sun, moon, stars, sea, and sky. He delivered Israel from…
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