Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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Hope is one of the traditional “theological virtues” – faith, hope and love. Hebrews 11 defines faith as hope, and for Paul “hope,” like Victor and Faith, is another name for Jesus (1 Timothy 1:1). In our sermon text, Paul encourages hope by saying God is able to do “exceeding…
There’s a slight false step, in the midst of a very helpful point, in Bruce Ellis Benson’s superb Graven Ideologies : He has been explaining the “double transcendence” of Platonism - metaphysical (Truth’s being is beyong the sensible world) and epistemological (human beings can get beyond the sensible world to…
In his Teaching Company tapes on Bach and the Baroque (recommended), Robert Greenberg suggests an historical sequence that accounts for the development of German music: Music for singing, which in the period was largely church music, must take account of the language in which the music is sung. German is…
Is the “mystery of Christ” in Ephesians 3:4 a mystery about Christ or is Christ Himself the mystery? Let’s take the latter option - Christ Himself is the mystery (cf. Colossians 1:27). How does that connect with the way Paul unpacks the mystery in terms of Jew/Gentile union (v. 6)?…
NT Wright points out that the ascent and descent language in Ephesians 4:7-10 is reminiscent of Moses ascending Mount Sinai and then descending with the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Jesus ascends to heaven, and when He returns He does not bring the law of commandments on tablets of stone,…
Macbeth hopes that his one act of regicide will stop the flow of time - “if ‘twere done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.” But it can’t be done when it’s done; actions provoke reactions. He ends tragically because he cannot trammel up the consequence. Time…
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