Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh answered him, "Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! This one will restrain My people" (1 Samuel 9:17) Many English versions of 1 Samuel 9:17 read, "This one will rule over My people," but that is a mistranslation. The Hebrew verb is `atsar…
We have arrived at the tentative date of A.M. 3474 for the decree of Cyrus, and we have determined to operate as if the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 are literal years. We also decided that Messiah the Prince arrives at the beginning of the 70th week, after the 69…
The book of Proverbs appears as a largely random collection of aphorisms drawn from experience saturated in law. Despite its random arrangement, however, the book does have an over-arching structure that reinforces its main themes. One way to gather clues regarding the structure of a biblical book (or any book)…
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of reading the first draught of Gary North’s Economic Commentary on Leviticus , which will be out some time next year. Gary’s comments on Leviticus 27 were stimulating, and caused me to take another look at the passage. The results, which I sent…
As we have seen in this series, each time there is a new covenant, there is a break in the year-by-year chronology. At the same time, each time the break is crossed by information provided in the text. Thus, the year-by-year chronology breaks down at the birth of Abraham, but…
The Openness of Literature Let’s discuss literature for a moment. There are two ways a story or novel can close. The first is called poetic justice. When a story ends with poetic justice, the bad guys are all punished and the good guys are all rewarded. This kind of story…
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In his study of Abelard’s soteriology, Logic of Divine Love , Richard Weingart the common claim that Abelard’s doctrine of the atonement is a “subjective” one. For starters, that opinion is based on a brief comment in Abelard’s Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos that “is only an outline of Abailard’s…
Abelard insisted that human beings cannot be held guilty of acts that the did not commit. And there went original sin. But he also recognized that people suffer evils, and he tied this to the original sin of Adam and Eve. Without repentance, people are heading to eternal damnation. Infants…
Like some other recent writers on the atonement, Sharon Baker argues ( Executing God , 125), in a fashion similar to Thomas, that “the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross was acceptable to God not because of the external offering of Christ’s body with its dripping blood, but because…
Phillip Cary of Eastern College has argued, “Protestantism cannot carry through its own deepest intention – to put faith in the word of Christ alone – without a Catholic doctrine of sacramental efficacy.” I offer a brief defense of Cary’s counter-intuitive claim at The Evangelical Pulpit .
Distinguishing Catholic-infused from Protestant-imputed is difficult to sustain, since Luther frequently claims that justifying righteousness is “within” rather than “outside.” Luther’s 1520 treatise The Freedom of a Christian provides some rich material for this investigation. This is a very early treatise, and does not represent in every respect Luther’s mature…
The title of Benjamin Dunning’s Christ Without Adam summarizes one of the key themes of his book. He devotes chapters to Stanislas Breton, Alain Badiou, and Zizek, all of whom have written on Paul in recent years. In each case, though in different ways, they break the links that Paul…
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