Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh answered him, "Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! This one will restrain My people" (1 Samuel 9:17) Many English versions of 1 Samuel 9:17 read, "This one will rule over My people," but that is a mistranslation. The Hebrew verb is `atsar…
We have arrived at the tentative date of A.M. 3474 for the decree of Cyrus, and we have determined to operate as if the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 are literal years. We also decided that Messiah the Prince arrives at the beginning of the 70th week, after the 69…
The book of Proverbs appears as a largely random collection of aphorisms drawn from experience saturated in law. Despite its random arrangement, however, the book does have an over-arching structure that reinforces its main themes. One way to gather clues regarding the structure of a biblical book (or any book)…
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of reading the first draught of Gary North’s Economic Commentary on Leviticus , which will be out some time next year. Gary’s comments on Leviticus 27 were stimulating, and caused me to take another look at the passage. The results, which I sent…
As we have seen in this series, each time there is a new covenant, there is a break in the year-by-year chronology. At the same time, each time the break is crossed by information provided in the text. Thus, the year-by-year chronology breaks down at the birth of Abraham, but…
The Openness of Literature Let’s discuss literature for a moment. There are two ways a story or novel can close. The first is called poetic justice. When a story ends with poetic justice, the bad guys are all punished and the good guys are all rewarded. This kind of story…
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Here’s lectures notes on the first of my lectures on the Trinity at the upcoming Ministerial Conference in Moscow. The next two posts will be notes for my other two lectures. Lecture #1: The Dance of God, the Dance of Life: Perichoresis in Creator and Creature INTRODUCTION Since the patristic…
Silence is often seen as the summit of piety. Barth wisely says: Confronted with the mystery of God, the creature must be silent: not merely for the sake of being silent, but for the sake of hearing. Only to the extent that it attains silence, can it attain to hearing.…
A couple of quotations from Barth (both from Church Dogmatics , II.2, p. 5), not surprising or unusual in the post-Barth theological world, but well said: “We should still not have learned to say ‘God’ correctly (i.e., as understood in the Christian Church and on the basis of Holy Scripture)…
Well, Barth at least agrees that there is a nature/grace dualism implicit in the infralapsarian position. Strikingly, he points to the danger of anthropocentrism in supralapsarianism, arguing that by making the salvation of individual x and the damnation of individual y the primary purpose of the whole show, supras encouraged…
I’m poring over Barth and Berkhouwer on decrees and election, and seem to be making some progress. Try this: The doctrine of the decree is not merely that everything is predetermined. When the decree is formulated this way, it is hard to distinguish from determinism, and the decree has very…
Every tree That sheds autumnal glory In hope of spring Reveals The eternal life Of God
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