Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Protestant-Catholic relationship has hardly been an untroubled one. And yet, the possibilities for various layers of reconciliation are better then at any time since the original schism 500 years ago. One of the symbols for the church that is used in Scripture is the church as a household (Ephesians…
Despite the layers of wiping, covering, and ransoming during the Day of Recoverings, true unity still has not been achieved. Divorce is still possible; God still might leave his people. Thus the Day of Recoverings must be repeated every year. The perpetual expression of unity between God and man in…
The events of Leviticus 16 are commonly known as “The Day of Atonement,” from the Hebrew phrase yom hakippurim, in Leviticus 23:27. However, it would be more accurate to say, “The Day of Atonements,” [i] since the word is plural. The plurality primarily relates to 16:33, which states five different…
Mary Douglas, against the common notion that primitive religious rituals were illogical and random asserts, “The analysis of ritual symbolism cannot begin until we recognize ritual as an attempt to create and maintain a particular culture … Any culture is a series of structures which comprise social forms, values, cosmology,…
Jesus holds seven stars. They are the angels of the seven churches (Revelation 1:20). For ancient readers and hearers, "seven stars" would evoke a number of associations - the seven planets, the seven stars of Ursa Major, and the seven stars that make up the Pleiades. The last makes a…
When he first arrives in Harran, at Paddan-Aram, the home of Laban his uncle, Jacob sees a well. Wells are mentioned frequently in Genesis. Twice Hagar finds a well in the wilderness (Genesis 16:14; 21:19). Philistines seize Abraham’s well (21:22-34), and Abraham’s chief servant finds a wife for Isaac at…
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Fundamental to any cultural scheme is the organization of the two basic coordinates of human life, space and time. A social and cultural world is at least a particular imaginative and physical ordering of these coordinates. Israel?s life as a people was patterned spatially by the sanctuary that was placed…
There is something of a Longfellow revival going on recently, with the publication of the Library of America edition of his collected poems a few years ago, the first time a complete collection has been published in some time. Longfellow was eclipsed during the heyday of modernism, but in the…
Thomas S. Schreiner has some intriguing comments about Paul’s descriptions of his suffering for the gospel in Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ . For example, he cites 2 Corinthians 2:14, where Paul gives thanks to God as the one who “always leads us to death in Christ and…
Thomas S. Schreiner has some intriguing comments about Paul’s descriptions of his suffering for the gospel in Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ . For example, he cites 2 Corinthians 2:14, where Paul gives thanks to God as the one who “always leads us to death in Christ and…
In one of the great essays on Great Expectations , J. Hillis Miller claims that Pip exemplifies a consistent view expressed in Dickens?s hero, which is equally a philosophical view of identity that tends toward existentialism and a closely related view of modern social order” ?Dickens heroes and heroines have…
Richard Gaffin?s work always makes for challenging and edifying reading, and his inaugural lecture as Charles Krahe Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary, published in the Fall 2003 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal is no exception. Three points were especially revealing: 1) In discussing the relationship…
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