Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
Showing page 244 of 309
Showing page 41 of 43
Partly in reaction to Western trends, partly inspired by them,, nineteenth-century Russian Orthodoxy, writes Orlando Figes ( Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia ) retreated into Russianness: “the Russian church grew introspective and withdrawn, more intolerant of other faiths, and more protective of its national rituals. It became a…
For nineteenth century Russians, France was the model civilization. The model polity too. James Billington ( Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith ) points out that the early revolutionary upheavals in Russia were inspired by a Western revolutionary nationalism that was ultimately of French origin.…
We are not a nation of atheists, says Ross Douthat . We are religious, but we prefer a religion (and a God) who is OK with “human appetites and all the varied ways they intertwine. From the sermons of Joel Osteen to the epiphanies of Eat, Pray, Love , our…
When Paul urges the Judaizers who trouble the Galatian churches to “mutilate themselves” (Galatians 5:12), it seems like a crude joke. They like cutting foreskins; might as well go all the way to cut off the whole thing. But it’s not just a vulgar insult. As many commentators have noted,…
Rev. Richard Bledsoe explores victimhood and the gospel at the Trinity House site.
INTRODUCTION Zion has been pleading with God to bare His arm and come to her rescue (Isaiah 51:9), and Yahweh has promised to do it in a dramatic public way (52:10). When the arm is revealed, it’s not what Zion expected (53:1). THE TEXT “Who has believed our report? And…
Showing page 773 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
