Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The doctrine of justification is precious among Protestants. And it should be. The fact that God has declared our sins forgiven and that we have a righteous standing in the sight of God united to Christ is comforting and brings great joy. Unfortunately, the biblical teaching on justification is, many…
The Old Testament priests were given a number of seemingly disparate duties. As everyone knows, the priests led the sacrificial worship of Israel; only the priests could sprinkle blood on the altar or within the tabernacle, and only they could approach the altar to turn sacrificial animals into smoke. But…
M issional ecclesiology is all the rage these days, but for many being “missional” means downplaying or even eliminating concern for the “internal” life of the church, particularly its liturgical life. Missional and liturgical, mission and communio , are locked in zero-sum combat. That cannot be right. The liturgy is…
An old friend of mine, now passed into Heaven, started to say this in relationship to his sometimes troubled family, in the last quarter of his life, "I just had to take responsibility for the whole thing..." That was the seed for a new reading of the Gospel for me,…
She departed the port, dressed in her best ceremonial regalia, with tassels and flags fluttering from her mast and rigging. She stood tall, robed in mist, crowned in white, and backlit by the rising sun. There she sat, shimmering and spotless; with a perfect ragtop, and a full tank of…
John the Baptist is presented in the gospels as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise that God would send His messenger to prepare the way for the coming of the glory of the Lord (Is. 40), and the promise to send Elijah before Him to turn the people to…
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Isaiah’s promise that strangers and foreigners will tend flocks, farm, and maintain vineyards for Israel (61:5) makes it sound like the nations will do the menial work while Israel lives in cultured leisure. I suspect something else is in view. Flocks, grain, and wine are liturgical materials in the Hebrew…
The anointed Servant proclaims Jubilee - liberty to captives (Isaiah 61:1; cf. Leviticus 25:20). Jubilee gives not only freedom from debt-slavery but a return to ancestral property. Liberty takes physical form in possession of land. So Isaiah is still talking about Jubilee when he promises “double” in the land (v.…
Isaiah 61 closes with a brief song, apparently sung by the anointed Servant of verse 1. He is dressed up as a glorified Adam in a new garden that teems with righteousness and praise. The servant is vested and robed, an appropriate sequel to the anointing. That is enough to…
In his contribution to Sacrifice in Religious Experience , Tsvi Abusch observes that the center of Mesopotamian cult was not the killing or burning of an animal, nor the festive meal that often followed sacrifice. The central event was feeding the god: “Food was placed before the god and consumed…
The war in heaven (Revelation 12:7-12) looks like an even contest. On the one side stand Michael and his angels and on the other the dragon and his angels (v. 7). But the text is organized to show that the two sides are not as symmetrical as they initially seem:…
There is war in heaven (Revelation 12), and Michael casts the dragon from heaven to earth. Good thing for heaven; not so good for earth, because the dragon comes down enraged and begins to attack the mother and her children. But the dragon is eventually cast out of earth too,…
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