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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Finlan ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors ) wants to distinguish sharply between sacrifice and the removal ritual of the day of atonement. He is not persuasive. He claims that “Hebrew sacrifice must be performed in the temple, and it is used to cleanse the temple, which is the center and…
Finlan doesn’t think there’s any idea of substitution in the sacrificial rites, though there is in the scapegoat ritual ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors , 91). To see a penal substitution in sacrifice, “assumes something that is never stated in Hebrew texts: that the animal is being somehow punished.” He…
Dorothy Sayers once said that the incarnation and atonement prove that, whatever God may be up to with His world, He is determined to play by the rules. Paul would have agreed. Stephen Finlan writes ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors , 101), apropos of Paul’s use of cultic terminology in…
Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt “on eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4). John A. Davies argues ( A Royal Priesthood ) that this is no trite metaphor: “Representations of [eagles and vultures] are found in close association with royalty in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. A series of temple scenes in Egypt…
Priests have been despised throughout the modern era, but in Scripture the priest is a foretaste of the destiny of the human race. He is a sign of the restoration of the imago Dei . John Davies explains how ( A Royal Priesthood , 164-5): “Just as the original creation…
Hosea 6:7 has been a Reformed proof text of an Adamic covenant: They broke covenant like Adam. Recent commentary has been skeptical. “Adam” can mean “mankind,” rather than the individual first man. John Davies ( A Royal Priesthood , 202) thinks the older interpretation, however “unfashionable,” has something to commend…
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