Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
From time to time, when I’ve lectured on how to read the Bible, I’ve used art-music as one example thereof. When we listen to a simple folk song, we hear the same melody over and over again, but this is not how composers write "high" music. Let me amplify. A…
Sermons are rarely more tiresome than when they strive for relevance. Drawing from the latest headlines transforms the preacher into a one-man MacLaughlin Group, a Crossfire without the cross though perhaps with some of the fire, and leave the congregation thinking, "If I wanted Meet the Press, I could have…
Part One: The Old Testament “Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness, but the abuse of drink is from Satan, the wine is from God, but the drunkard is from the Devil” Increase Mather in Wo to Drunkards (1673). 1. The “wine”…
28. These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the 7th year 3023 Jews. 29. In the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem. 30. In the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4600…
Revelation 21:24 says, concerning the light shining from the New Jerusalem, "and the nations will walk by her light, and the kings of the land will bring their glory into her." Similarly, Revelation 22:2 says, concerning the Tree of Life, that "the leaves of the tree were for the healing…
Jeremiah and the Beginning of Jehoiakim’s Reign Now comes Jeremiah, at the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, with similar words (Jeremiah 26). Harken to God’s law, he said, or else God will destroy the Temple the same way He sent the Philistines to tear down the Tabernacle at Shiloh (Jeremiah 26:6;…
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“Let him give his cheek to the smiter, let him be filled with reproach” (Lamentations 3:30). In context, Jeremiah is speaking of afflicted Israel, which he himself embodies as the prophet. “I have hope in Him,” Jeremiah writes (v. 24) and then turns to a meditation on the value of…
Lamentations 3:43-44 are set in parallel: A. You covered yourself with anger and pursued us B. You have slain and not spared A’. You have covered yourself with a cloud B’. So that no prayer can pass through. Both A sections speak of Yahweh hiding Himself behind a veil -…
College costs keep rising, but Kathleen Parker argues that the more serious problem is that students are no longer getting “much bang for their buck.” Parker sites a study from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni that criticizes colleges for “an increasing lack of academic rigor, grade inflation, high…
Back in 1934, Walter Dill Scott, president of Northwestern, already anticipated distance education : “The university of twenty-five years from now will be a different looking place, says President Scott of Northwestern. Instead of concentrating faculty and students around a campus, they will ‘commute’ by air, and the university will…
In his 1888 treatise on Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (7-9), Gerhard Uhlhorn contrasts pagan liberality with Christian charity. He acknowledges that pagan liberality was considerable, but that did not make it identical to the Christian virtue. “Liberality is the heathen virtue which corresponds to the compassionate love, the…
In a sermon on “Catholic Unity,” delivered in 1844, John Williamson Nevin announced the end of “Protestantism”—of the knee-jerk anti-Catholicism that, he said, did as much damage to the Reformation as the errors it opposed. “It is not enough now,” he declared, “simply to cry out against popery and puseyism,…
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