Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…
A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…
The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…
The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…
I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…
Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…
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S elf-transcendence is in various forms an essential part of modern moral theory. To be truly good, in a Kantian framework, is to transcend personal self-interest, self-love, in order to conform one’s actions to the categorical imperative. Halbertal ( On Sacrifice ) observes that this note of self-transcendence means that…
In both Christian and Jewish theology, charity was one of the forms of post-sacrificial sacrifice. Halbertal ( On Sacrifice , 40-1) observes that this is not merely a matter of substitution but of fulfillment. Sacrifice, he points out, always exists under the possibility of failure. A worshiper brings his gift,…
It’s a central thesis of John B. Judis’s new Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict that there was a moment when the Arab-Israeli conflict could have been averted, but, under pressure from the Zionist lobby, the great powers, especially the US under Truman, failed to avert…
The Economist review of The Great Prostate Hoax by Richard Ablin observes that opposition to prostate testing has moved in from the margins. Ablin, who claims to have identified the protein widely associated with prostate cancer, questions whether it gives any useful information. As the review explains, “In some men…
Drawing on Howard Eilberg-Schwartz’s The Savage in Judaism , I argue that the ills of modern theology can be cured only by re-savaging Judaism. And Christianity.
The notion that American Indians are the ten lost tribes of Israel is quaint today, but during the age of exploration, Europeans thought they had plenty of proof. Thomas Thorowgood’s Iewes in America laid out dozens of resemblances between Judaism and Indian customs. As summarized by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, these included:…
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