Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen. 1:28). In Christian worldview…
"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…
One of the important themes of the synoptic gospels is Jesus’ rejection of Israel and the transfer of God’s favor to the New Israel, the Church. A clear statement of this theme is found in the parable of the vineyard owner in Matthew 21:33-46. Jesus explained the meaning of the…
11. There is a type of person [a generation] who curses his father, And does not bless his mother. 12. There is a type who is pure in his own eyes, Yet not washed from his filthiness [manure]. 13. There is a type — oh how lofty are his eyes!…
Under the Levitical law, whole-burnt offerings from the herd and flock had to be male. No such specification is made with respect to birds (cf. Lev. 5:7-10). Why did the Lord demand that only males be offered as whole-burnt offerings? The easy answer is that the whole-burnt offering typified Christ,…
Matthew 2:13-23 has a tripartite structure, reporting briefly three events of the early years of Jesus’ life. Matthew ends his narrative of each event with a "fulfillment formula." Jesus’ flight to Egypt and His Exodus back into Israel was a fulfillment of Hosea’s words, "Out of Egypt I call my…
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As she has traveled in the US to promote Reading Lolita in Tehran , Azar Nafisi has heard a lot about the dismal state of reading in America. She wasn’t convinced, and begins her new book, The Republic of Imagination , with a defense of the American reader: “The majority…
Mark Greif’s The Age of the Crisis of Man exhumes a neglected thread of American intellectual history, a period from the early 30s to the early 70s when the “crisis of man” was on everyone’s mind. Though an intellectual history, Greif attends as much to novelists as to philosophers, arguing…
God set Jesus forth as a “ hilasterion in His blood” in order to achieve redemption (Romans 3:25). Theodore Jennings ( Outlaw Justice , 66), insistent on reading Paul politically, can’t quite make sense of this: “The text connects loyalty to blood. And this is exactly what a reader of…
“Gifts,” writes John Barclay ( Galatians and Christian Theology , 307), “typically express and reinforce a preexistent system of values.” Gifts are given to the deserving, and signify their merit. According to Paul, God’s gift of Christ is given to the un deserving, and that “dangerous and unsettling” gift (308)…
A strong angel hands John a book, not to read but to eat (Revelation 10). The instructions and John’s compliance (vv. 9b-11) are chiastically structured: a. He said, Take and eat. b. It will make your stomach bitter c. but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey. a’/d.…
John is commissioned to write to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 1). He’s commissioned again as a prophet to prophesy (chapter 10).The reason is that his portfolio expands. He initially writes to the churches, and his visions have to do with the “land.” His second commission is to be…
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