Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1 Kings 17, which abruptly introduces Elijah into the history of the northern kingdom, is a carefully constructed literary unit. In its basic structure, it follows a clear exodus-return pattern. Like Jacob and his sons, Elijah was driven out of the land by a famine (vv. 1-4). In exile, Elijah…
Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and they were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is…
In the year 3119, Ahaziah of Judah and Jehoram of Israel were both slain by Jehu as he carried out his God-appointed task of eliminating the seed and house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:13-33). Since the kings of Israel are usually counted as beginning their reign in the same year…
One of the most important developments in Biblical studies in recent years has been a movement of scholars devoted to studying the literary techniques of the Biblical writers. Tremper Longman, III of Westminster Theological Seminary has treated this movement from a Reformed perspective in his Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation…
And because [Paul] was of the same trade, he stayed with [Aquila and Priscilla] and they were working; for by trade they were tentmakers (Acts 18:3). The fact that Paul was by trade a tentmaker has usually been taken as the springboard for a discussion of whether pastors should have…
I pointed out in Chronologies and Kings Part 9 that the years of Judah’s kings are given in chronological fashion. "When we read of a Judahite king’s reign as lasting 4 years, it means that 4 years of the chronology have been given to him, and there is no chronological…
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Traditional debates about faith and works might be clarified and illuminated by highlighting eschatology. To wit: God intends to establish perfect justice and peace, reconciling all things by the Spirit in the Son. That is the future of the world. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence…
As Jacob re-enters the land after his sojourn in Haran, he sends ahead a present ( minchah ) to appease ( kafar ) his estranged brother Esau (Genesis 32:20-21). This is a “peace offering,” and not only in a metaphorical sense. The text uses the language of sacrifice, and other…
God is, Edwards says, “self-existent from all eternity, absolutely perfect in himself, in possession of infinite and independent good . . . above all need and all capacity of being added to and advanced, made better and happier in any respect.” Edwards also says things like this: “That nature in…
Stephen Stein doesn’t much like what he calls Jonathan Edwards’s “strange and troubling” interpretation of Esther (an essay in Jonathan Edwards at 300: Essays on the Tercentenary of His Birth ). Edwards linked Esther with the account of the Amelikes in Exodus 17, and used the “curse of perpetual war…
What is an American? Twenty years ago, Garry Wills ( John Wayne’s America ) answered that the “archetypal American is a displaced person – arrived from a rejected past, breaking into a glorious future, on the move, fearless himself, feared by others, a killed cleansing the world of things that…
The biblical writers don’t know how to end a story. Genesis 22, one of the best-known and most dramatic of biblical texts, the story of Abraham’s interrupted sacrifice of Isaac, is a case in point. Give the episode to a Hollywood script writer and the thing would end with a…
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