Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
(continued from previous issue) Between 30 and 50 What did the Levites do between age 30 and 50? Numbers 4 shows us that they carried the house of God on their shoulders. Lifting up the Lord is an image of worship in the Bible, and David’s restructuring of the Levites…
When God created the world, He created two lands: the Throne-land of Eden (entered through the sanctuary-garden, the Garden of Eden), and the Outlying Lands, such as the lands of Havilah and Cush. This essentially bi-polar world is the world of the Old Creation, and it continued to exist until…
Color is inescapable, except for those who are color blind. In our church architecture, we either employ color schemes that are helpful to worship, or we employ color schemes that are not helpful. Of course, this assertion merely begs the question: What color schemes are most helpful. God showed interest…
As I noted in an earlier article in Rite Reasons , the Church Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine all claimed that baptism inducts the baptized person into membership in the royal priesthood of the church, and Thomas Aquinas said that baptism, by imprinting an indelible “character” on the soul, confers…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
In my Preliminary Commentary on Daniel , which many of you have obtained, I argued in chapter 13 that the four monsters called up from the sea by the evangelistic work of the four winds (the saints) represented the deep hatred of God that evangelistic work brings to the fore…
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It's tempting, Ivan Illich admits ( Gender ), to think that “gender” is tribal and primitive, and that “social sex” inevitably arises in advanced, complex social and economic settings. He offers the gendered world of the Middle Ages as a counter-example. Tenants and freeholders paid rent to the lord, and…
I n a TLS essay on the Welsh poet David Jones, A.N. Wilson traces Jones’s poetic impulses back to World War I: “The First World War in general, the Battle of the Somme in particular, became Jones’s imaginative habitation for the rest of his life, as a visual artist and…
I n various writings advocating efforts to promote the unity of the church, I haven’t always made clear that unity is not the same as uniformity. This is a brief clarification. It's natural, and unobjectionable, that churches manifest the cultural variations of peoples that constitute them. German churches will sing…
S hould young children receive the Lord's Supper? Should we practice paedo-communion? Before we address the question of paedocommunion, we must specify both what the question is and what sort of question it is. First, what is the question of paedocommunion? It is not in essence a question about the…
I srael gathers at Hebron to make David king (1 Chronicles 11–12). There are the usual king-making actions—anointing, covenant-making, mutual declarations and pledges. It is also a festive occasion, a three-day feast of eating and drinking (12:38–40). As I’ve noted before , four beasts bring seven types of food. It’s…
C hristians often oppose truth and unity. Evangelicals are inclined to leave unity to the mushy mainline, to eclectic ecumenists, and devote themselves to the rock-hard truth, regardless of its divisiveness. The New Testament doesn’t permit this opposition. The rock-hard gospel truth is a truth about unity. The gospel announces…
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