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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Matthew 11:19: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners. Jesus’ teaching in this chapter is all about timing. He is the Coming One; the time of fulfillment has come, and the evidence is…
Matthew 11:11, 13: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he . . . . For all the prophets and the law prophesied until…
In Hosea 13:15, the prophet says of Ephraim, “Though he flourishes among the reeds, an east wind will come, the wind of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; and his fountain will become dry and his spring will be dried up; it will plunder his treasury of every precious…
In her introduction to a new edition of Paradise Lost (Blackwell), Barbara Lewalski notes the oddness of Milton’s epic protagonists and setting. Citing the Proem to Book 9, she writes that Milton “has indeed given over the traditional epic subject, wars and empire, and the tradition epic hero as the…
Putnam writes, “I agree with Rorty that the metaphysical assumption that there is a fundamental dichotomy between ‘intrinsic’ properties of things and ‘relational’ properties of things makes no sense; but that does not lead me to view the thoughts and experiences of my friends as just the intentional objects of…
Hilary Putnam has recently traced the “collapse of the fact/value dichotomy.” He does not deny that there is a distinction to be made, useful in some contexts, between statements of fact and statements of value, especially of ethical value. But he argues that a dichotomy between fact and value is…
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