Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The preceding essay has caused me to consider the possibility that the life of Abraham as recounted in Genesis contains a typological prophecy of the history of Israel; that is, that the events in Abraham’s life broadly anticipate events in Israel’s history. This kind of pattern is seen in the…
by: Jeff Meyers and James Jordan In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of a man who had been ill for 38 years and who was lying by a pool located by the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. This sheep waited, as did many other infirm people, for an…
What had been reduced to ruin by this sex, would by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. —Tertullian What is Paul saying about women and salvation…
Back in Biblical Horizons 132 I discussed the horrible abuse of the converted men of Salem/Shechem in Genesis 34. These Hivites had joined the covenant by circumcision and then were slaughtered by Simeon and Levi. That, however, is not the end of their story. In Joshua 9 we find the…
Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…
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The following was delivered as a "Solemn Charge and Exhortation" at the beginning of Epiphany Term 2022 . We at Theopolis aspire to form leaders who share and carry out a biblically-rooted vision for reformation in the city of God and renewal in the city of man. We hope to…
Angels were certainly not unknown to Israel, and the entire history of Israel occurred under angelic oversight. But nowhere in the Bible is there a cluster of angelic appearances like we find at the beginning of the gospel story. An angel appears to Joseph to tell him to take Mary…
This article was first published at Firstthings.com on December 4, 2015 . The Gospels obviously tell the life story of a human being. Jesus was born. He lived in subjection to his parents, grew up, learned a trade, made friends and enemies, walked the dusty roads of Judea, climbed mountains,…
What are the general ontological foundations of the incarnation? asks Sergius Bulgakov in a dense paragraph of The Lamb of God (171-2). “In what does the inexorable predeterminedness of the Incarnation consist?” Negatively, he writes, it’s “erroneous to limit the theology of the incarnation to soteriology.” The incarnation isn’t merely…
I wrote the following essay some time back for some website or other. When I went searching for it recently, I discovered it was hard to find, so I'm re-posting it here, with very minor changes, to make it more readily available . The recent Evangelical brawl about the Trinity…
Consider: 1. The Spirit is the Passion of God, the center of His emotional life. His Spirit arouses judges to battle frenzy. In the Spirit, Yahweh regrets creating the world (Genesis 6:3, 6). Yahweh’s soul delights in His Servant (Isaiah 42:1) and rejoices over Israel (Jeremiah 32:41). Yahweh pours out…
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