Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…
It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…
Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…
It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…
It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…
In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…
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Did the Greeks sacrifice all the animals they ate? Gunnel Ekroth (“Meat in ancient Greece”) says No, though he also says that most of the meat they ate was “sacred,” even if not “sacrificial.” The distinction of the two is crucial. Drawing mainly from osteological evidence to supplement that from…
Gunnel Ekroth considers the important role that decisions by lot played in Greek society: “This was not an infrequent phenomenon in Greek society and was encountered not only at sacrifices, but also when land was parcelled out at colonial undertakings as well as at the selection of political magistrates. The…
In a TLS review of Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files , Edward Luttwak traces things back to dynamics within the post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy. In Luttwak’s telling, it’s a case study of bureaucratic expansion. He argues that “Only a few hundred were really justified of the many thousands employed to service…
Joan Cadden’s Nothing Natural is Shameful is many things: A careful study of the medieval reception and use of various Aristotelian texts; an analysis of medieval natural philosophy and ethics and the relation between the two; a contribution to research about Western views of sodomy; a study of medieval notions…
Pastor Arthur Kay offers these thoughts on the symbolism of Palm Sunday: “Palms are associated with covering clouds (Feast of Booths, Leviticus 23:40). They are also associated with the nations (Exodus 15:27; Revelation 7:9). Therefore, on Palm Sunday, Jesus is already coming on the clouds – He rides on palm…
No other mythology, writes Eva Kuels in The Reign of the Phallus , gives rape a more prominent role than that of Greece (49). In our expurgated handbooks of mythology, it’s called “dalliance” or somesuch, but Kuels argues that the artifacts show that what’s happening is rape. In most cases,…
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