Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
There’s something about joy that is infectious. And occasionally, we all have the opportunity to be in someone’s presence who is so happily engaged in their work, so joyous in their pursuits, that we want to learn from them. We want to know where that joy comes from and attain…
Jesus has told us that He intends all nations to be discipled. Nations. Not just individuals. All nations as theocracies. That being the case, the Church exists for the life of the world. Being baptized is not only a matter of becoming part of a new family, it is also…
Harold Bloom’s essay on Macbeth includes the kind of penetrating insights that make Bloom the great Shakespearean scholar that he is, but it also includes his typical and intense anti-Christian bias. “If Lear was pre-Christian, then Macbeth is weirdly post-Christian. There are, as we have seen, Christian intimations that haunt…
Revelation 16 is a day of atonement text. The tabernacle of the testimony has been opened (15:5). The angels who receive the bowls are clothed in linen (15:6), the clothing of the high priest when he goes into the sanctuary on the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:4). The temple is…
From time to time, when I’ve lectured on how to read the Bible, I’ve used art-music as one example thereof. When we listen to a simple folk song, we hear the same melody over and over again, but this is not how composers write "high" music. Let me amplify. A…
"For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). Some reflections on Jonah’s Big Fish have led to the following essay. Let me…
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Shakespeare’s Hamlet is indisputably one of the most important dramatic works in the history of Western literature. It has been staged countless times, filmed often, and commented upon too often to recount. Unlike many other dramatic works, Hamlet has not been the province of critics alone, but has been an…
Proper time moves through redemptive history: The Father sends the Son to be incarnate at Advent and Christmas; the Son lives, dies, rises again, and ascends; and He gives the Spirit at Pentecost. The Church calendar climaxes with Pentecost, before moving into the “off-season” of Trinity. The church calendar is…
Raymond Brown makes this comment in his discussion of the sign at the wedding feast: "Scholarly interpretations to the contrary, John does not put primary emphasis on the replacing of the water for Jewish purifications, nor on the action of changing water to wine . . . nor even on…
Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson's splendid Echoes of Exodus begins with the claim that "Scripture is music" (21). Music functions as a controlling metaphor for Scripture and for reading Scripture. That means, for starters, that the Bible is written to a pulse of tension and resolution: "Sometimes two or more…
N.T. Wright recognizes that the message of imminent judgment is central to the mission and ministry of Jesus (cf. Jesus and the Victory of God ). He insists too that Paul is aware of Jesus' prophecy and that Paul's mission is shaped by the looming catastrophe. This from Paul in…
Discussing recent movements in Pauline studies, N.T. Wright ( Paul in Fresh Perspective , 17) insists on three points. First: "there are such things as texts; however much we deconstruct them, they bounce back with renewed challenge." Second: "there are such things as fresh and compelling readings of texts; new…
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