Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions…
Stones External and Internal The modern practice of dismantling the Bible into a shambles of documents authored in response to disparate historical events rather than viewing it as a unified testimony inspired by God is a surefire way to miss what is actually going on in the text. This failure…
King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by Zerach. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end,…
What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. It's can serve as a summary of Paul's letter to the Romans, and throws some important light on the themes of that letter. Paul begins his sermon with a quick…
Iago as Tempter The answer to our first question — whether or not Othello is really great tragedy — has already pointed the way to the answer for the second question — Was Othello a noble Moor or a fool? The two questions, of course, are necessarily related. The fall…
When Adam McIntosh was ordained as Pastor of Saint David’s Church (CREC) in Houston on June 11, 2017, it was the culmination of decades of preparation. Adam is the product of two continents and three Christian traditions. Born in Paducah, Kentucky, he lived his early years partly in Jericho, where…
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James Jordan has suggested that the vision of new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-22:5) is arranged as a chiastic recasting of the creation week: A. Day 1: Light in the city, 21:10-11 B. Day 2: Boundaries and measurements of the city, 21:12-17 C. Day 3: Materials of the city, 21:18-21 D. Day…
The verb “show” ( deiknuo ) occurs eight times in Revelation, and the eight uses fall into a neat pattern. Twice at the beginning (1:1; 4:1) and twice at the end (22:6, 8), the verb is used with a generic object. God shows “things which must shortly take place” (1:1;…
In an essay on “barriers and bridges” in American religion, Stephen Warner emphasizes the role of music in building bridges, forging solidarity without requiring assent to a common set of propositions. He offers a florilegium of quotations from various scholars: “At an emotional level, there is something ‘deeper' about hearing…
William H. McNeill's Keeping Together in Time explores the role of “emotional bonding through rhythmic muscular movement” in history (52). The significance of the phenomenon occurred to him during military training in 1941: “A sense of pervasive movement in unison is what I recall; more specifically, strange sense of personal…
The final chapter of the Bible (Revelation 22:6-21) is a rapid series of speeches and dialogues, structured in fourfold parallelism. Each new section introduces a new speaker or speech with some form of “he said.” The speakers move from an angel to Jesus to the Spirit and bride. The chapter…
In a 2007 Bibliotheca Sacra article, Mark Hitchcock examines various theories about the identity of the seven heads of the beast in Revelation 17:9-11. It's been proposed that the number seven is purely symbolic of fulness, and that the heads are not to be identified with any historical characters. Hitchcock's…
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