Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1 Kings 17, which abruptly introduces Elijah into the history of the northern kingdom, is a carefully constructed literary unit. In its basic structure, it follows a clear exodus-return pattern. Like Jacob and his sons, Elijah was driven out of the land by a famine (vv. 1-4). In exile, Elijah…
Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and they were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is…
In the year 3119, Ahaziah of Judah and Jehoram of Israel were both slain by Jehu as he carried out his God-appointed task of eliminating the seed and house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:13-33). Since the kings of Israel are usually counted as beginning their reign in the same year…
One of the most important developments in Biblical studies in recent years has been a movement of scholars devoted to studying the literary techniques of the Biblical writers. Tremper Longman, III of Westminster Theological Seminary has treated this movement from a Reformed perspective in his Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation…
And because [Paul] was of the same trade, he stayed with [Aquila and Priscilla] and they were working; for by trade they were tentmakers (Acts 18:3). The fact that Paul was by trade a tentmaker has usually been taken as the springboard for a discussion of whether pastors should have…
I pointed out in Chronologies and Kings Part 9 that the years of Judah’s kings are given in chronological fashion. "When we read of a Judahite king’s reign as lasting 4 years, it means that 4 years of the chronology have been given to him, and there is no chronological…
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Charles Taylor's account of our Secular Age has many virtues. (The following relies on Jamie Smith's summary of Taylor in How (Not) To Be Secular ; page numbers are from Taylor.) Taylor rejects “subtraction” theories of secularization, the notion that secular life was lurking beneath the sacred surface of ritual,…
Max Weber begins his lecture on “Science as a Vocation” by noting the “meaningless” of science, a product of the notion of scientific progress that guides scientific pursuits in the modern world. “E ach of us knows,” Weber writes, “that what he has accomplished will be antiquated in ten, twenty,…
James KA Smith's You Are What You Love is an accessible, penetrating treatment of the liturgical understanding of human existence, of discipleship, and culture that Smith has been developing in a number of his recent books. In this book, he focuses on the specifics of Christian liturgy as a “technology…
Revelation 21-22 gives a vision of an adorned city. Kings bring treasures into the city, but the city isn't just a container for art objects. The city is an art object. The entire civic order is an artistic creation. If the city is an art object, then all of the…
In his summary of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age , James KA Smith observes how apologetics accommodates to the social imaginary of the secular age. Apologetic responses to secularism have too often “conceded the game; that is, the responses to this diminishment of transcendence already accede to it in important…
The vision of the heavenly city at the end of Revelation contains a major oddity: The city descends twice . There are structural reasons for this. The first vision concludes one sequence in Revelation, and the second introduces a final vision. It is the same city, but the vision gives…
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