Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…
The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…
In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…
These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…
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In his contribution to Pentecostalism and the Christian Churches , Waldo Cesar calls attention to the spatial connection of Latin American Pentecostal churches with the urban streets of Latin America: “There is nothing special from an architectural point of view, and in many cases large movie theater, rented or bought,…
Waldo Cesar observes ( Pentecostalism and the Future of the Christian Churches , 91-92) that Protestantism has often felt like a foreign import to Latin America. There was a discontinuity between Protestant missions and the local population, and Protestantism tended to rely on the outside world. All this impressed Latin…
David Martin ( Future of Christianity , 68-69) notes that in the heat of Pentecostal revival, blacks and whites fuse. He admits that “the fusion of black and white was partly reversed as the movement developed, when it came to the mingling of races. The white heat of revival initially…
“A key function in most religions,” write Michael Emerson and Christian Smith ( Divided By Faith ) “is to proclaim what ought to be, what is universally true, what is right and just. We call this the prophetic voice” (163). American religion, however, fragments this prophetic voice, even within the…
Leviticus 1-3 form a unit. 1:1 begins with “Yahweh called to Moses and spoke to him,” and a similar phrase, ‘Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying” shows up in 4:1. Chapters 1-3 form a single speech from God. The chapters cover three offerings: the ascension ( ‘olah ), the tribute of…
One the features of denominational Christianity highlighted by David Martin is a distinctive mode of sacramental theology that he labels “subjective.” Unlike sects, denominations retain sacraments; unlike the church, the sacrament is less the work of God than the expression of the worshiper. The contours of his characterization are worth…
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