Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8) O God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, who inspired Creation with the breath of your nostrils, who placed Adam in the…
For nearly a half-century, Sodom has been a key symbol in the American culture wars. On the one side, we have an aggressive movement among homosexuals that has first decriminalized homosexual conduct, then to force cultural and legal recognition of homosexuals as a minority and to normalize homosexual behaviors, finally…
Speaking of the Church, Romans 11:16-17 says, "And if the root be holy, the branches are also. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the…
At the end of Isaiah 61, Yahweh's Servant rejoices because the Lord clothes Him with salvation and righteousness. He decks Him like a bridegroom with a garland on His head. He wears jewels like a bride. He is a new bridegroom in a new garden of Eden, a garden of…
Before anything else, a word about “Torah” may be in order. I have been persuaded that “law” is a bad translation of “Torah,” even though it is evident that what is called “Torah” does have commandments, statutes, and ordinances in abundance. Why not “law?” “Law” as a translation for “Torah”…
Few novelists seem as innocent of the temptation to punditry as Jane Austen. Though living through a period that witnessed the birth of an independent United States, the French Revolution and the Terror, the Napoleonic wars and the rise of revolutionary romanticism, and the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, she…
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Richard Hays proposes the follow explanation of the title “faithful witness,” applied to Jesus in Revelation 1:5 ( Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation , 78-79): “‘the testimony of Jesus’ must include the memory or message of Jesus’ own faithful suffering and death. This is suggested first of all…
Who is the one who “is, was, and coming”? In Revelation 1:4, it’s the Father. In verse 8, it seems to be the Triune God. Who is “Alpha and Omega”? In Revelation 1:8, it’s the Triune God. In 22:13, it’s Jesus. As Joseph Mangina has put it, John indicates that…
Revelation 1 describes Jesus with three titles: faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. Revelation 1 describes Jesus work with another triad: He loved us, loosed us from our sins, made us a kingdom of priests. The two triads match: Jesus loves us as…
In a previous post , I noted how the testimony of John the Seer parallels the testimony of John the Baptist. But there’s more to it. There’s something structural going on. In that post, part of my evidence was the unusual (though not unique) doubling of martur - words in…
In an essay in the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora , Edrel Arie explains the dramatic effects of the fall of the second temple on Jews outside Judea. “Diaspora communities naturally vacillate between the desire to preserve all three: their unique identity, their connection to their cultural center, and their…
More specifically, what’s in Noah’s name? Much, says Michael Morales in The Tabernacle Pre-Figured (164-7). “The keys words of [Genesis] 6.5-8 form a paranomastic allusion to the name of Noah ( nch ): ‘regretted’ ( nacham ) 6.6, 7 (which meaning is contrasted to its use in 5.29 as ‘relief,…
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