Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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In his 2005 Christmas encyclical, Deus caritas est , Benedict XVI explains why love has to be understood as both eros and agape , as ascending and descending love. He notes early on that the Bible rarely uses the word eros , arguing that “the tendency to avoid the word…
Proverbs concludes with the portrait of the “excellent wife” (31:10). The portrait reaches back to the beginning of Proverbs and the portrait of wisdom. Like Lady Wisdom, the excellent wife’s value is far above jewels (v. 10; cf. 3:15; 8:11). Like Lady Wisdom, the excellent wife offers food (31:15; cf.…
Today, many Reformed theologians are advocates of "classical theism." A few hints from Richard Muller's volume on the Trinity raise the question of whether the Reformed tradition fits neatly into what passes as classical theism today. A few brief gleanings will suffice to raise the issue. Classical theists insist above…
Kendal Soulen ( The Divine Names and the Holy Trinity , 97) summarizes Barth's treatment of the implicit Trinitarianism of the Old Testament: "the Old testament testifies to Yahweh in three distinct ways. 'Yahweh' refers 'a first time' to the unseen God who is invisibly enthroned over all things, who…
In an insightful piece on " wokeness as myth ," Alan Jacobs points to a brief blog post in which Timothy Burke describes Trump as a "desecration": "Trump is the Piss Christ of liberals and leftists. His every breath is a bb-gun shot through a cathedral window, bacon on the…
Fergus Kerr, explicating Thomas's understanding of divine simplicity, acknowledges that "The doctrine of divine simpleness seems to make God so utterly different from anything created - so 'totally otherwise' - that any claim to have knowledge of God would be ruled out on the grounds that that which is 'simple'…
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