Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In this essay we will think about how the whole Bible is structured as one Word of God. To begin with, there is only one Bible, not two. While we divide the Bible into Old and New Testaments, that division has no more meaning than divisions into chapters and verse,…
How should one badly bruised and inadequate church relate to another? (I am not addressing the blessed possessors of absolutely perfect churches, naturally.) I believe there are three things to bear in mind. First, we must be open to the values in other Christian traditions - even Roman Catholic and…
The third and sixth day have a second creative act. Note the chiastic arrangement of the material in these special acts and the parallelism between them, see the figure below. The author arranges the description of each day as a chiasm. Each line in the chiasm is mated with a…
Now the two of them were naked, the man and his woman, and they did not sense shame (Genesis 2:25) The nakedness of Adam and Eve requires several comments. First of all, against those who think that nakedness is what God intended for humanity as a permanent estate, we have…
I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of integration, and our longing for integration in a fragmented world. I’ve been connecting my own covenant epistemology further with the thought of scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi, artist Makoto Fujimura, and Classical Christian metaphysician D.C. Schindler. In my last post , and now in this…
Luke 13:31-33 is one of the strangest passages in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a time note that sounds emphatic “At that very hour.” Then, we are told of Pharisees bringing a message that Herod wants to kill Jesus! In His answer, Jesus speaks of a three day…
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In a 1956 JBL article on John’s gospel, one Pierson Parker makes the intriguing statement that 1 John makes almost as much sense read backward as it does read forward. This is evidence that the letter’s contents are “disconnected” and that the letter reads like “an old man’s anxious exhortations…
Another argument against Wurm’s thesis is that from John’s testimony, John’s opponents claim to be a superior enlightened class that has a higher knowledge of God than ordinary Christians can attain. But how is this an argument against Wurm’s idea that the opponents are Jews? Wouldn’t they claim to have…
Another argument against Wurm’s thesis is that from John’s testimony, John’s opponents claim to be a superior enlightened class that has a higher knowledge of God than ordinary Christians can attain. But how is this an argument against Wurm’s idea that the opponents are Jews? Wouldn’t they claim to have…
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica mentions Wurm’s thesis that John’s opponents were Jewish Christians, but concludes that “the antithesis of John and Cerinthus, unlike that of Paul and Cerinthus (Epiph. Haer. xxviii.), is too well based in the tradition of the early Church to be dismissed as a later dogmatic reflection,…
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica mentions Wurm’s thesis that John’s opponents were Jewish Christians, but concludes that “the antithesis of John and Cerinthus, unlike that of Paul and Cerinthus (Epiph. Haer. xxviii.), is too well based in the tradition of the early Church to be dismissed as a later dogmatic reflection,…
In his commentary on the Johannine epistles, I. Howard Marshall notes A. Wurm’s thesis that John’s opponents were Jews. John’s opponents claim to know the Father, but deny Jesus is the Christ, a position that is certainly compatible with Judaism. Marshall dismisses Wurm’s thesis because John treats his opponents as…
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