Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In an earlier paper 1 I argued that the story of Jonah belongs in the book of KINGS. Jonah and the unnamed Judean prophet in 1K13 are paired by the author through literary links. The Judean prophet travels longitudinally to confront national paganism and is killed but not swallowed by…
The Scriptures have much to say about “the day.” “This is the day that the Lord has made,” sings the Psalmist (Psalm 118:24). But what exactly is the day ? Or, more broadly, what even is a day? Days make up human life like water, light, and air. There’s no…
According to the Westminster Confession of Faith 21:5, “God is to be worshipped everywhere, in spirit and truth, …” A similar phrase is found in the OPC’s Directory for Public Worship (II.6). In my experience in the OPC and other Reformed churches, the phrase is often interpreted to mean that…
Introduction In Genesis 3:16, after the fall, God said that Eve would “desire” her husband and that her husband would “rule” over her. It is popular for Christians to interpret Eve's desire as sinful, that she would try to usurp her husband's authority. Likewise, some interpret Adam's rule as sinful,…
White Western/Christian society has long discriminated against lesbians and homosexuals — ever since the days of Moses — who was neither white nor Christian, but that is beside the point — who claimed that God gave him revelation about what a man or woman is and how they should relate…
They Found a Book in a Wall, You Won’t Believe What Happens Next The secret behind the history of quiet times will make your quiet times more effective than ever. One of the enduring mysteries of American Evangelicalism is the question of the source of Quiet Times: A Handbook ,…
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Cheating is pervasive, but rarely receives extended ethical analysis, argues Deborah Rhode in her forthcoming Cheating . We cheat on taxes, in games and sports, in love, in finding shortcuts to get what we want. She argues for a stringent set of criteria for breaking conventions and rules: "individuals’ natural…
Poet and novelist Ben Lerner struggles to explain the experience of reading the poems of John Ashbery, who died this week. The experience, mind you, not the poems themselves, which tend to defy explanation. Lerner quotes his first novel, where a character is describing reading Ashbery: "The best Ashbery poems…
Josiah presides over the greatest Passover in the history of the monarchy (2 Chronicles 35:18). No sooner has the celebration subsided than Josiah heads out of Jerusalem to confront Pharaoh Neco as the latter marches north to fight Assyria. Josiah makes a military and political blunder here. But it's worse…
Neel Mukherjee reviews recent books on India, including Adam Roberts's Superfast . Roberts, he says, offers a serious book that exposes the appalling problems that India faces. Not least is the current government's penchant for authoritarian manipulations: "Modi, however, has a firm understanding of fake news and image manipulation. From…
The title novella in Patrick Modiano's collection, Suspended Sentences , is a masterpiece of disquieting understatement. The adult narrator, Patrick, tells of the period of his childhood spent (as "Patoche") with an odd assortment of caretakers - Little Helene, who walked with a slight limp from a circus accident; Annie…
In his Life of Bertrand Russell , Ronald Clark describes the austere Evangelical regimen of the philosopher's childhood: "Lady Russell's evangelical concern to press her younger grandson into a mould of her own choice stamped him physically, intellectually and emotionally with marks that lasted all his life. A puritan despising…
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