Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
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In Saving the Appearances , Owen Barfield describes the consciousness of early humanity as follows: "The human soul may be one of the 'stopping-places' for mana , but what differentiates the primitive mind from ours is, that it conceives itself to be only one of those stopping-places and not necessarily…
There is a glory of the sun, of the moon, and of the stars, Paul says. And star differs from star in glory. He's talking about resurrection, but Joel Salatin ( The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs ) wants to apply the principle to every created thing: "Glory speaks to uniqueness;…
Aristotle taught that women are defective men, with rational and moral capacities inferior to men. This is evident in generation, where the man provides the form, the fertilized seed, while the woman plays a passive role. It's sometimes argued that Aristotle's philosophy of femininity simply reflects his age, with its…
Seven times in John's Gospel, Jesus says "I am" with a predicate: 1)I am the bread of life, 6:35 2) I am the light of the world, 8:12 3) I am the door of the sheep, 10:7 4) I am the good shepherd, 10:14 5) I am the resurrection and…
The following is taken, with minor adaptations, from the introduction to my commentary on the Johannine Epistles . The gospel goes to the Jew first. When they resist, Paul turns to the Gentiles, but he hopes by this to provoke the Jews to jealousy, so that in the end Jews…
In an essay exploring (in typical Marxian fashion) the cultural effects of late capitalism (specifically on architecture), Frederic Jameson tells a fascinating story about the Rockefeller Center, drawing on Robert Fitch's The Assassination of New York . Fitch's story is about the conspiracy to change New York City from a…
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