Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Jonah is Paul’s typological opposite. Indeed, in the whole Old Testament, it would be difficult to find a more perfect foil to Paul than Jonah. Whereas Paul crosses the sea to enact God’s saving purposes for the Gentiles, Jonah crosses the sea to avoid bringing Gentiles God’s mercy. For that…
Years ago, I realized that if my children wanted to feel like their house was a home, I needed to be intentional about making our physical shelter a place of spiritual refuge. I began to see the Holy Spirit as the indwelling person of the Trinity—the one who makes His…
When the crowds encircle Christ in Solomon’s Porch during the Festival of Dedication, they charge him: “tell us boldly who you are!” 1 They do not draw-up to him to with excited anticipation as they did earlier in the Gospel, 2 instead they flank him like a gang of wolves.…
1 In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, Moses wrote: When Yahweh your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations…
Every Advent witnesses the gruesome reanimation of the voice that whispers “you know , Christmas is just a pagan holiday…” with that sort of conversational ellipsis that does not so much invite further reflection but halts and forecloses it. The claims are several and equally spurious: Jesus wasn’t born on…
Abraham's life in Genesis is a series of trials. He travels hundreds of miles from his family into a new land, flees from a famine into the hands of a king who takes his wife, and after returning, has to rescue his brother from a war. He's involved with two…
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This essay was first published in the May 1991 issue of First Things. Though Evangelical Protestants have become more liturgically attuned than they were in 1991, I think the article is still relevant . Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book The Struggle for America’s Soul…
Paul and Jane Sinclair, protagonists of J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes , move from England to the French Riviera to live at a new high-tech business park, Eden-Olympia (!), after Jane’s friend and former lover, Dr. David Greenwood, goes on a killing spree that ends with suicide. Jane, a pediatrician,…
In a discussion of the Ten Words ( Systematic Theology, II ) argues that the "second table" applies to all polities. I have doubts about the "second table" notion, and also about the plausibility of separating the last six words from the first four. Still, Jenson has some penetrating things…
We're delighted to announce that Esther Meek will speak about feasting at the Theopolis Feast on the evening of July 19, 2022 (register here ). In anticipation, I'm re-posting a review of one of her books . At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek’s splendid Little Manual for Knowing is…
During the second half of the twentieth century, concentrated efforts were made to make the world safer for children, drivers, and vulnerable people. All fifty states passed safety belt laws. Sharp objects were removed from homes and day care facilities. Toys and playgrounds became softer. It worked. Death rates for…
History isn’t added to creation. Creation isn’t a stable backdrop to the action on stage. It’s not as if God first makes an immobile set of things and structures and then kicks them into gear. Quite the opposite. The first thing God speaks into being – the only thing He…
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