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…
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If you’re in the vicinity of Duke, you might be interested in a conference sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, in cooperation with the Duke Divinity School, on May 21-23, at Duke. The theme is “Preaching, Teaching, and Living the Bible.” Speakers include Robert Jenson, Rusty Reno,…
Marjorie Garber has, as usual, some insightful things to say about Merchant of Venice: 1) She describes the play as “Shakespeare’s great play about difference,” pointing to the apparent stark contrasts of Christian and Jew, Venice and Belmont, male and female. Yet, she also notes that the play is busy…
A.R. Braunmuller offers some suggestive comments in his introduction to the Merchant of Venice in the Pelican Shakespeare. Having summarized Portia’s speech (which he suggests might be a “setup that turns on a technicality” that “turns back on Shylock a legal rigidity he had been duped into demanding”), he notes…
Thomas argues that “if the human nature is not united to God the Word in person, it is not united to him in any way, and thus belief in the incarnation is altogether done away with, which subverts the entire Christian faith.” But since there is a union, it must…
Frederick Bauerschmidt claims that “Aquinas is in fact the first medieval theologian in the West to quote directly from the Council of Chalcedon.” This is remarkable on all sorts of levels, not least because of the questions it raises about the authority of the ecumenical councils in medieval thought.
INTRODUCTION Seneca’s de Beneficiis was known to the Christian Middle Ages, as were some of the gift and gratitude customs of the Roman world. We’ll examine the use that Aquinas makes of Seneca when we get to the Summa later this week. But in addition to these ancient sources, medieval…
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