Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
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Iain Provan doubts that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes . One of the “striking” bits of evidence is “that many of the later passages in Ecclesiastes appear to be written from a non-Solomonic point of view (i.e., from the perspective of the subject rather than the ruler, e.g., 5:8-9; 8:1-9).” It’s a…
More thoughts on Ecclesiastes, stealing, as always, from James Jordan . The image of “shepherding wind” has a particular application to the king, who is the shepherd of flock of Israel. Solomon recognizes that ruling a kingdom is like trying to shepherd wind, which is of course impossible for human…
Some additional thoughts about the role of the “remnant” in Israel’s history, which supercede earlier posts on the subject. 1) The word “remnant” in the OT normally refers to the whole of Israel that survives a judgment, rather than to some sub-division of Israel that remains faithful during a period…
Christopher Dawson, who died in 1970, was one of the leading historians of the twentieth century. A devout Roman Catholic, hededicated his career, and some 25 books, to understanding andexplaining history, particularly Western history, from aChristian perspective. One little book, Christianity and the New Age, provides a glimpse of thewisdom…
As if anyone cares, here are some unfinished and amateurish comments on “what I think of postmodernism.” 1) First, it is helpful to distinguish, as many writers do, between postmodernism and postmodernity. The latter is a cultural/political mood or condition, referring to movements in architecture, film, and other arts that…
Somewhere in his blog discussion of Brian McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy , Doug Wilson indicated that McLaren considers inerrancy a sell-out to modernist foundationalism. To support this, Doug pointed me to this quotation from John Franke’s foreword to McLaren’s book: “In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the foundationalist impulse produced a…
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