Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
References to the Son of Man coming on the clouds occur five times in the Synoptic Gospels. Three times such expressions appear in the parallel accounts of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:36; Luke 21:27). Then, in parallel accounts of Jesus’ trial before the leaders of Israel, such expressions…
Just what the difference is in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is a question not so easily answered. The distinction is often said to be that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is on the believer, but in the New…
1. Introduction You should think of 1917 at church on Sunday. Why? Let me explain. There's one film every Oscar season which everyone seems to have watched—your parents, your colleagues, even your pastor. This year, it's 1917— Sam Mendes' WW1 epic following two British Tommies on a seemingly impossible quest…
This piece was originally part of the Bowyer response to the Theopolis series surrounding Professor McDermott’s essay, “Rethinking Israel.” For the sake of brevity, it was removed from the initial response, to be published as a standalone piece. As we’ve argued previously , we are strongly supportive of the right…
Richard Bauckham’s groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony , is profoundly insightful, but the message of the book is hampered by the presupposition of Marcan priority. Ironically the place where this assumption perhaps does its most damage is in Bauckham’s discussion of the apostle Matthew…
The Protestant Reformation was defined by certain clarifying disagreements between the medieval Church and those who came to be known as Protestant Reformers. Chief among these was the nature of justification: whether one was justified by works, or by faith and works, or—as Martin Luther contended—by faith alone. Now over…
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L ouis, the dying, grasping, hateful narrator of Francois Mauriac's Vipers' Tangle believes the “tangle of vipers was outside myself,” forming a “hideous circle” consisting of his wife and children. He has occasional moments of lucidity when he recognizes that the satanic nest is really within, as in this self-reflection…
L eviticus 18 consists largely of rules on sex-permitted degrees of consanguinity, prohibited sex acts like homosexual sodomy and bestiality and adultery. The chapter begins, though, with a more general warning against conforming to Egyptian and Canaanite ways of life. Verse 3 puts this in a series of parallel clauses…
W hen Shakespeare's Richard II disembarks in Wales, he learns that Henry Bolingbroke has usurped his throne and that three of his most trusted allies have turned Judas—“three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!” (3.2.132). Villains, vipers, dogs, and snakes have become his courtiers. The most shocking blow, though,…
K evin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert ( What Is the Mission of the Church? ) are concerned about the inflation of missionality in Evangelicalism. They are in favor of churches that engage in mercy ministry and advocate for justice but they insist that these dimensions of the church's work are…
G enealogies may function “tribally,” that is, to secure the present of the tribe in the past, to hold the present hostage to the past, and to ensure that there is no variation. Change is the enemy; genealogies record change, but record change in a way that displays a continuous…
T oward the end of his book on hands , British psychoanalyst Darian Leader summarizes one of the main themes of the work: “Keeping our hands busy has always been a central human activity” (107). That busyness can take the form of a touch that draws us close, the grasping…
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