Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Timon Cline wrote recently that “theonomists” didn’t run Puritan New England. 1 He is correct, in his major thesis, that the claim that “Puritanism and the natural law tradition are antithetical” is “wildly ahistorical.” Mr. Cline demonstrates that Puritans repeatedly extolled natural law. Besides the Puritan sources Mr. Cline mustered,…
The Church is the land of the walking trees. In Mark’s Gospel, the identity of Jesus is slowly and progressively revealed. Though St. Mark announces at the beginning of his narrative that Jesus Christ is “the Son of God” (1:1), this is a reality that must be spoon-fed to His…
All Scripture is of ultimate significance as the word of God, but it may be helpful to think about what makes a book (in this case, a letter) possibly unique within the canon. In this case, the “general” nature of Ephesians should stand out, but it often is not recognized…
Where do we draw the lines between what is right and wrong? This question is fundamental to civilization, fundamental to a free society. To put this question in the bluntest and most offense terms: if there is a time to kill — which Solomon says there is — whom shall…
This article was originally posted in May of 1994. We speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The early Church tended to speak of Him as Father, Word, and Spirit. In this short essay, I want to suggest some other ways to think of the Trinity, ways that…
Jonah’s Home The story of JONAH belongs in the book of KINGS. JONAH balances the story of the unnamed Judean prophet (1K13) in KINGS’ literary structure. Each story describes a journeying prophet that crosses land or sea to confront a wayward king. The two stories are located during the reigns…
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Joel 2:25 plays a strangely prominent role in the Arian controversy.  In the NASB translation, the Lord promises to “make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, my great army which I sent among you.” In the Greek translations…
The priests pay Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:15).  The amount of the payment takes us back to Exodus 21:32 and Zechariah 11:12-13.  Here I want to muse on the connection between Matthew and the Exodus passage. The scenario in Exodus is this: A man owns…
“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” For nearly two millennia, Christians have been singing that every week, often without a second thought about the radical claims embedded in the hymn. In Isaiah 6, the song shakes the temple, but Christians…
Gifts blind the clear-sighted and subvert justice (Exodus 23:8).  In context, that’s statement about bribery, and the word used for “gift” here is almost invariably used for bribes of one sort or another (Deuteronomy 10:17; 16:19; 27:25; 1 Samuel 8:3; 1 Kings 15:29; 16:8; etc.). Occasionally, the reference seems a…
From Nabokov’s lectures on literature, quoted in Smith’s book: “All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over.  Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic relight is between the shoulder blades.  That little shiver behind is quite certainly…
Jamie Smith’s latest book ( Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies) ) is excellent.  He rightly challenges the tendency for “worldview-talk” to take a rationalist bent, and in place of the assumption that “man is a thinking being” he argues an anthropology based on the notion…
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