Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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Corey Latta borrows the title of his When the Eternal Can Be Met from CS Lewis’s The Great Divorce . The book is a study of the influence of Henri Bergson’s theory of time on the post-conversion writings of Lewis, TS Eliot, and Auden. He notes that none of these…
In his Babel and Bible , Friedrich Delitzsch pointed to the leftovers of “Sumerian-Babylonian culture” in the modern world - the Zodiac as a system of twelve signs, the circle divided into 360 degrees, the hour divided into sixty minutes and the minutes into sixty seconds (66-7). Babylonian influence is…
Curtis White observes in The Science Delusion that scientists regularly appeal, without admitting it, to extra-scientific values. Natural selection, Dawkins says, lifts us “to the dizzy heights of complexity, beauty and apparent design that dazzle us today” (quoted p. 16)). Hawking finds the “miracle” of a fit between logic and…
Rupert Shortt, author of Christianophobia , complains that the media misreports incidents of Christian persecution: “The battle for sexual equality clearly has a long way to run. But this doesn’t mean that any hardship suffered by a woman can be ascribed to misogyny. The logical false move has been especially…
Yahweh won’t rest until Zion’s righteousness and salvation burst out like a flash of lightning. No one will miss it: “Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory” (Isaiah 62:2). Visible glory make sense. “Glory” is by definition visible in the Bible - the fiery glory cloud of…
Jesus promises the overcomers in the church at Philadelphia that He will set them up as pillars of His temple and inscribe them with a triple name - the name of God, the name of new Jerusalem, and Jesus’ own “new name” (Revelation 3:12). New names are common in the…
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