Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I was still a high school student the first time I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I will never forget the powerful impact the book had on me. Of course, as a second year student, I did not fully digest the book. In spite of subsequent readings, I…
Crises force questions of identity. Identities may remain assumed until some event, or series of events, challenge what may have been taken for granted. The search for identity is an anxious one precisely because it tends to happen in times of upheaval and uncertainty. In his recent book, Orthoxox Anglican…
Peter Leithart recently wrote a fascinating short piece about the Half Shekel Temple Tax as an atonement. Leithart argues three main points. First that the Sanctuary Shekel was heavier, i.e., more valuable than the everyday shekel. Second, he offers some analysis about the order of magnitude of the purchasing power…
There is no denial from the careful reader that 1 Samuel 24 and 26 are telling the same story. Perhaps we should say, virtually the same story. But that the stories are cut from the same cloth is undeniable. What we have over these three chapters—1 Samuel 24-26—is a very…
In his novel That Hideous Strength , C.S. Lewis is able to masterfully illustrate in narrative form so many of his insights about the subversive dangers of Leftist political dogma to Christian civilization. Perceptive essays from Lewis like “The Abolition of Man” and “The Inner Ring” are fleshed out in…
At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city, whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the…
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I have little sympathy overall with the work of Heikki Raisanen, but he makes some shrewd comments on Paul’s argument in Philippians 3. As he points out, several of the items on Paul’s list of “fleshly” advantages are things that he has received through no work of achievement of his…
And they dwelt three years. There was not war between ?Aram and between Yisrael. And it was in the third year And came down Yehoshafat king of Yehudah to king of Yisrael. And said the king of Yisrael to his servants, ?Do you know that to us is Ramoth-gile?ad? And…
Another benefit of considering hermeneutical issues through reflection on humor: People can say and do things that are unintentionally funny. On a strict construal of authorial intention as the source and foundation of meaning, this would have to be explained with some kind of Hirschian distinction between “meaning” and “significance,”…
The NASB translates 1 Kings 22:21 as “then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’” But the Hebrew has the definite article with “spirit” (RUACH), and the mentioned in v 23 is explicitly the Spirit of Yahweh. Apparently, it’s THE Spirit that…
I posted this a few weeks ago, but since then my web site has been experiencing technical difficulties and this post disappeared. Apart from a couple of slight stylistic changes, this is the same post. My work is cited several times in the recent Mississippi Valley Presbytery Report on the…
1 Kings 21:9-10: ?Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the people; and seat two sons of Belial before him, and let them testify against him, saying, ?You cursed God and the king.?E Then take him out and stone him to death.?E Jezebel?s plot involved proclaiming a…
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