Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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I have found Bryan Spinks book on the sacramental theology of Stuart theologians disappointing. So far, there’s little besides some fairly superficial summaries of the work of individual theologians. Some of these open up interesting angles, but Spinks makes no effort to relate shifts in sacramental theology to larger cultural…
Letter from a Graduate Student Following is a transcription of a letter found in the archives of a recently deceased Professor of Philosophy at a major American university. The original was written in a childish scrawl, and was almost illegible. For reasons that may be obvious, the provenance of the…
I read a good bit of Buchan while in Cambridge, and here is a short analysis of one of his best historical novels, Midwinter . Midwinter is an historical novel set in England during the mid-eighteenth century effort of the Jacobite supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie to place their leader…
I’ve been wanting for some years to write an article developing the fairly simple point that all texts depend on things that are not in the text for their meaning. Jokes are among the best examples of this. What makes a joke funny is usually something that is not stated…
Some impressive quotations from Muller’s Christ and the Decree (p. 36): This is Calvin ( Inst 2.12.1): In discerning Christ’s merit, we do not consider the beginning of merit to be in him, but we go back to God’s ordinance as the first cause. For God solely of his own…
Perichoresis has been used historically to describe God’s relationship to the world, as a way of expressing the immanence and transcendence of God. It is true, on the one hand, that God is contained by nothing, and is instead the One in whom we live and move and have our…
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