Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The god of Israel was not just any god. Two thousand years of Christian history, with it’s besetting philosophical temptations, and full-blown deist and transcendentalist and universalist problems, have obscured the fact that, in itself, the identity of the true god (or gods) cannot be predetermined, any more than the…
Jacob and Solomon God gave wealth and possessions to Jacob, and then threatened to take them all away at Peniel. Jacob wrestled with God, and through prayer Jacob saw through the crisis by faith and was made victor (Hosea 12:4). The Kingdom period in Israel concerns the same themes. We…
In our study of the historical impact and unfolding of the Ten Words of God, we now arrive at the Third Word. The Third Word prohibits hypocrisy, and when we realize this, we can see right away that disobeying the Third Word is closely tied to the situation of Israel…
Abraham and Joshua In our previous two essays, we considered aspects of the lives of Abraham and Jacob, as these display how God works with men in history. These two men carry in themselves all the future of Israel, so to speak, and their lives at the individual level correspond…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World (continued) Physical Training Though it is seldom recognized any more, the fact is that no liberal arts and no science is possible apart from peace, and peace is only possible if there is a strong military presence that protects a nation.…
Last month, in our essay " Patriarchal Dominion ," we observed the flow from Abraham to Jacob to Joseph. Our concern here is to advance our understanding of that narrative flow. I should mention that I am assuming much that is found in my book Primeval Saints: Studies in the…
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Commodification is a three step dance, according to John McKnight and Peter Block ( Abundant Community ). It begins by identifying a human condition; it redescribes the condition as a problem that can be fixed; and then it sells the fix (39). The fix gets reduced to elements and then…
I don't agree with Seth Postell's fundamental thesis in Adam as Israel . He states the thesis as follows: "when understood as the introduction to the Torah and the Tanakh as a whole, Genesis 1-3 intentionally foreshadows Israel's failure to keep the Sinai Covenant as well as their exile from…
The Chronicler carefully lays out the chronology of Josiah's reign (2 Chronicles 34-35). 1)Becomes king at age of 8 (34:1). 2) In the eighth year of his reign, at age 16, Josiah begins to seek God (34:3). 3) In the twelfth year of his reign, at age 20, Josiah begins…
Bo and Ben Winegard analyze today's "Great Awokening" as a religious movement. They deploy the categories of sacredness and purity, priestly privilege, sin, atonement, and absolution to explain "Wokeness" as a religious movement and a status system. They admit to that "many of their moral concerns are entirely legitimate," but…
Here's a connection I missed in my commentary on Revelation. One of hundreds. In Numbers 31, the Lord instructs Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites. The vengeance is for the attack by the Balak of Moab, who joined the Midianites in attacking Israel. Initially, they tried to hire the…
In a chapter in The Social in Question , Bruno Latour summarizes the work of 19 th -century sociology Gabriel Tarde. Latour is particularly interested in the anti-structuralist import of Tarde’s social metaphysics and anthropology. Tarde writes, for instance, “In general, there is more logic in a sentence than in…
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