Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After the identification of the recipients of his letter at the beginning of Revelation, John gives a benediction that resembles the benedictions of the Pauline letters. He pronounces grace/favor and peace, grace and favor that lead to peace, grace that leads to fullness and harmony that is the biblical definition…
Throughout the latter half of 1-2 Samuel, Saul and David are locked in hand-to-hand combat. It seems an unequal contest. All the heavy artillery is on Saul's side. To understand the full scope of the conflict, we need to back up to the beginning of the book. Prior to Saul's…
Last week, I lectured at Ostrog Academy in Ostrog, Ukraine, and at a pastors' conference in Kyiv. The latter was co-sponsored by Trinity House and the Alliance of Reformed Churches in Ukraine. I offer my impressions of Ukraine this morning at Firstthings.com .
Why do I bristle when I see someone with white wires hanging from his ears, flipping through what must be a million songs downloaded onto his iPod? No doubt, it’s the threat of the new. I've only recently begun carrying a cell phone, and now I hear tell of compact…
Judah is in terrible shape (Isaiah 57). Yahweh told Israel to worship Him only at the temple, but the people worship on every hill and under every green and leafy tree. He commanded them to worship Him alone, but they are devoted to many gods. Worshipers set up their beds…
Like any great writer, the Lord foreshadows late happenings in early happenings. Like many greater writers, the Lord ends where he begins, returning to a glorified Edenic city-sanctuary at the end of his cosmic story. The Lord writes with history, real people and events, not merely with words. But His…
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“R emember His wonders which He does,” the Levites sing when the ark is brought to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 16:12a), doubtless referring preeminently to the wonders of the exodus but more distantly to the wonder of doing/making creation. At creation and in the exodus, God's wonders are the wonders of…
T oward the end of the rambunctious Paris Review interview , sometimes a meta-interview about the process of interviewing, Mark Helprin answers the question, Why do you write? As always, he answers circuitously, by contrasting creativity in pre- and modern art: . . . in a secular world, each artist…
I n a NYRB review of Anthony Gottlieb’s Dream of Enlightenment , Thomas Nagel corrects Gottlieb’s account of Hobbes’s moral philosophy. He lucidly summarizes Hobbes’s moral argument for absolutism: Hobbes’s theory, and what led to his being attacked as a moral nihilist, was his refusal to appeal to any concern…
I n his poignant, deeply personal New York essay on his distraction addiction, Andrew Sullivan reflects on the silence of sacred places: “From the moment I entered a church in my childhood, I understood that this place was different because it was so quiet. The Mass itself was full of…
M axwell Anderson’s forthcoming Antiquities surveys the world of antiquities, summarizing law, history of collection, the difference between the interests of archeologists and antiquities dealers, forgeries and their detection, the market in antiquities. Everything you’d want to know. Anderson places the rise of interest in antiquities in the context of…
S tuart Banner attempts to draw the fine line between investment and gambling in his forthcoming Speculation . Among other things, his book is a history of America’s double-mindedness about speculative investing. Visitors to the early US regularly made comments like this from German journalist Francis Grund: “An American merchant…
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