Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
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Sin is an ethical rather than a metaphysical problem - so says van Til, repeatedly.  I know what he means: Creation is good; saved human beings are fulfilled human beings, not something other kind of being. Yet, there are questions. 1) What if we adopt a more relational metaphysics.  Does…
Some thoughts on temperance inspired by a student paper on the Faerie Queene , Book 2.  The student cited an article linking Guyon’s story with the developing “modern” view of time as a commodity.  With the new view of time, temperance began to be linked with self-restraint in time.  Instead…
INTRODUCTION During Advent, Pastor Sumpter and I will be alternating preaching, and we will be preaching on the lectionary, that is, the passages that make up our Scripture readings for Advent.  All these passages are about the Lord’s “coming,” and thus all shed light on the meaning of the incarnation,…
Matthew 26:58: Peter also was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in and sat down with the officers to see the outcome. We’ve concentrated in the sermon this morning on Jesus’ trial itself, but as Matthew tells the story of…
We live in an age when many of our relationships are mediated through a screen.  We email family members in the next room, and often know more about the lives of Facebook friends than we do about the people who live next door or who sit next to us at…
PROVERBS 28:7 We again have a proverb about torah and knowledge.  The one who keeps watch over torah is a son who knows.  The word translated as “wise” in the NASB is a form of the verb byn , used in verse 5.  Here, the verb puns with the word…
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