Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready (Psalm 7.11, 12). David’s inspired lyrics do not sound very encouraging to modern ears–especially to modern Christian…
The story of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) is one of the best known and most loved of Jesus’ parables. I am not going to attempt to exegete the passage, as that has been done admirably and ably by others. Rather, I want to briefly examine what bearing the passage…
In Romans 2.6-16, Paul writes, He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there…
It was still dark as David approached the crest of the little ridge. The eastern horizon was not even gray. It was early. But he knew this trail well. Every morning before dawn and every evening before dark, he would walk down to the well and carry water back to…
The theme of Romans is the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:16-17). That is to say, Romans is something of a theodicy. Paul is defending God’s covenant faithfulness, particularly in light of Jewish unfaithfulness. How does it work? Without getting into exegetical details, we can still sketch out the big picture.…
The New Perspective on Paul (NPP) is a loosely defined movement held together primarily by a common understanding of Second Temple Judaism. All NPP theologians basically adhere, with varying degrees of intensity and consistency, to Ed Sanders’ claims with regard to the nature of pre-70 A.D. Judaism. Sanders has sought…
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Plays might be promoted as a kind of opiate of the masses: Mass entertainment that keeps them from more violent entertainments like rioting and pillaging. This could be problematic, if the entertainments were too heady for most people to follow. Thomas Heywood (1612) suggested that playwrights should “ayme . .…
How regulated was Shakespeare’s own theater? And for what reasons? Patterson highlights various reasons for closing or permitting theaters: audience composition, including the fear that a large collection of workers might be distruptive; public health; economic concerns; religious and moral concerns, especially Sabbatarian; and “a shifting and elusive imperative to…
Shakespeare’s fortunes in the US were, understandably, different from in England. Initially, Shakespeare was America’s most popular playwright, appealing to a wide sector of the American populace. Patterson notes that “by the end of the nineteenth century ‘Shakespeare’ had become a cultural icon, the property only of the ‘legitimate theater,’…
Annabel Patterson notes ( Shakespeare and the Popular Voice ) that contemporary critics, whatever their own political outlook, assume that Shakespeare was an advocate of Elizabethan hierarchy. This view, however, is a product of the 19th century. Dryden, Johnson, and others criticize Shakespeare for violating the conventions of his genre,…
By the 18th century, acting styles also invested Shakespeare with “courtly” virtues of control, dignity, stateliness. Dobson writes, “Shakespearian acting . . . in the decades following Betterton’s death in 1710, seems to have settled into a grandiloquent vein of static declamation, best exemplified by the stout James Quin (1693-1766)…
Dobson again: “after Charles II’s death in 1685 England would never again have another monarch with such an informed interest in the drama (or, mercifully, such a lascivious one), and deprived of royal patronage and protection the playhouses came under renewed attack from the moralists (led by the redoubtable clergyman…
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