Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When God created Adam, He gave him both a vision and a responsibility. The big vision was the Dominion Mandate. The more specific calling was to cultivate and guard the Garden. God also told Adam about the gold of Havilah, which was good and beautiful (that is how the Hebrew…
After the death of Jan Hus (1369–1415), his successors, the Hussites, began to develop his thoughts on the theology and practice of the Church, particularly on= the question of the lay chalice. This time, however, it was not a question of whether this should be permitted at all—after all, this…
Imagine a friend of yours got involved in a commune, one of the really crunchy ones that does their own farming and such along with poetry nights and music and art. They’re pretty good at all this, actually. They’re using some really interesting permaculture practices at the communal farm, the…
Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the more well-known typologically dissected passages in the Bible. But just for the sake of dotting “i”s, here is a quick rundown: The promised son’s appearing was awaited a very long time (Genesis 12:4; 15:2–3; 16:16; 17:17; 21:1–5;…
A Narrative Sermon on Luke 22:24-46 As Luke walked through the rain toward the corner house he was apprehensive. That surprised him. He knew all along that this was the climax of the process—that he would have to present his work to these men before it could be copied and…
In 2004, an article by Slavoj Žižek appeared in Psychoanalytic Review entitled, ‘What Can Psychoanalysis Tell Us About Cyberspace?’ One of the answers that Žižek offers is that cyberspace creates an environment within which the consumer gets to play in a world where there is no God. In his use…
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Pamuk again: “to read well is not to pass one’s eyes and one’s mind slowly and carefully over a text: it is to immerse oneself utterly in its soul. This is why we fall in love with only a few books in a lifetime. Even the most finely honed personal…
Pamuk again, summarizing a comment from Proust concerning reading: “There is, he said, a part of us that stays outside the text to contemplate the table at which we sit, the lamp that illuminates the plate, the garden around us, or the view beyond. When we notice such things, we…
In an essay on Notes from Underground , the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk suggests that Dostoevsky’s “anger was not a simply expression of anti-Westernism or hostility to European thinking: What Dostoyevsky[his spelling] resented was that European thought came to his country at second hand. What angered him was not its…
Jesus comes to bring a sword that sets sons against fathers, daughters against mothers, etc. (Matthew 10:34-39). What is the sword? Perhaps Rome; and when Jesus wields the sword of the Roman armies against Judea and Jerusalem, He sets family members against one another. With Rome threatening, some Jews will…
What is the “Parable of the fig tree” that Jesus mentions in Matthew 24:32? The fig tree’s branches and leaves will tell you that summer is near, and that when the things he describes take place the time of the end is near. But what does this refer to exactly?…
In her contribution to Hagar, Sarah and their Children (WJK), Phyllis Trible develops an interesting feminist reading of the story of Hagar. Her targets (surprise!) patriarchy and hierarchy, but along the way she makes some insightful observations on the text. She notes, for instance, that Hagar’s departure from the household…
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