Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The sin of Ham in Genesis 9 continues to elicit comment, since it seems mysterious. We read in 9:21-23 that Noah uncovered himself inside (the covering of) his tent, that Ham (entered the privacy of Noah’s tent) and saw his father’s (not “Noah’s”, n.b.) nakedness, that Ham told his two…
Recently the magazine Tabletalk published a series of essays against Calvinist theologian N. T. Wright. The black cover of this issue lets us know just how dangerous this man is. But how dangerous is N. T. Wright? Well, he’s dangerous to some people, but not to others. Let’s see: He…
You need to read Rob Rayburn’s defense of his presbytery to the PCA SJC (Standing Judicial Committee). If you’ve been out of the loop on this, that’s okay. But what has happened in the last few years is that people have made accusations against Peter Leithart, and in response the…
What does it mean to read the Bible as inspired literature? The method is not new nor is it uncommon in Dutch Reformed circles. Exegesis must be Christocentric, plenary (all the text serves a theological purpose), respect the context in God’s redemptive plan, and plumb the full literary depth of…
Reading in John Calvin’s sermons on 2 Samuel today, I came across this wonderful statement. This comes from a sermon preached on July 3, 1562, “The True Worship of God,” an exposition of 2 Sam. 6:1-7. Calvin is discussing the implications of the affirmation that Yaweh, the God of Israel,…
A great deal of confusion about the relative value of “virginity” and marriage can be avoided if one pays careful attention to the text of Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7. The two most important observations are: 1) that Paul’s specific recommendations are made because of the “impending crisis” (v.…
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Jeanne Halgren Kilde opens her When Church Became Theatre with a comparison of New Haven's First Church of Christ (built 1814) with First Baptist of Minneapolis (built 1886). There had been a shift in the exterior, from “the classical pastiche of Greek and Roman to a medieval one with Gothic…
In Psalm 80, the Psalmist is dismayed at Yahweh’s abandonment of His vine. Isaiah (Isaiah 5) laments but is not dismayed. He knows why the lover, his friend, has abandoned His vineyard-bride and now brings an indictment against her. What kind of grapes did Yahweh want? What kind of wine…
Human beings are temporal creatures, but our experience of time isn’t merely of the relentless tick-tock of clock time. Time has quality as well as duration. We can spend an hour waiting for a late bus, or we can spend an hour absorbed in a book or a lively conversation.…
In a NYT piece on a recent Galilean artifact, Isabel Kershner writes, “Experts have long believed that in the period before Herod’s Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, synagogues were used as a general place of assembly and learning, something like a neighborhood community center. The more formal conception of…
In an essay on “Reformation” in her recent collection, The Givenness of Things , Marilynne Robinson observes that Latin remained culturally dominant in England even into the age of Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and Julian of Norwich. Latin's hegemony “did have the advantage of making the learned classes mutually intelligible across…
“The bare fact is,” says Rowan Williams ( The Edge of Words ), “that the material world speaks .” Material agents speak, “and this speech is not . . . a chance decorative addition to mechanical process, but an activity that is implicated in the entire complex of finite agency.…
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