Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
21. Under three things the earth quakes. And under four, it cannot bear up. 22. Under a slave when he becomes king, And a fool when he is satisfied with food, 23. Under an odious woman when she gets a husband, And a maidservant when she supplants her mistress. The…
We have looked at the prima facie evidence for a short chronology in Ezra-Nehemiah, a chronology that assumes that the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7ff. and Nehemiah is in fact Darius. This month we examine the argument against the short chronology. There is only one argument, and that is that the…
The Priestly Genealogy Jeshua the high priest, who returned with Zerubbabel, was not a young man at the time. We know this because his father, Jehozadak, was taken into captivity (1 Chron. 6:15). Thus was 50 years before the decree of Cyrus (2 Kings 25:18-22, by implication). Jehozadak’s father Seraiah,…
Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity . . . What? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990. Reviewed by Rev. Jeffrey Meyers. Reading Oden’s After Modernity . . . What? was tonic. There were passages that launched me out of my chair with a hoot to pace the office floor — of course, the…
Matthew records that Jesus "withdrew" to Galilee to begin His public ministry there after He "heard that John had been delivered up" (Mt. 4:12). Matthew’s typically matter-of-fact style veils the truly remarkable character of Jesus’ withdrawal. Matthew has been presenting Jesus as the Messiah, the Seed of Abraham and Son…
John Brown called this one of the most difficult passages in the entire epistle to the Hebrews, and Hebrews is no easy book. Several questions confront us as we read and meditate on these verses. First, in what sense did the Old Testament saints described in verses 4-38 not receive…
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Every time it surges, Islam surges explosively. When it gets going, it makes the globe wobble. Robert Wilken ( The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity ) writes that nothing during the first millennium of Christianity rivaled the rise of Islam; it was as an “unexpected, calamitous, and…
Before he converted, Boris, khan of the Bulgars, peppered Pope Nicholas with questions about how conversion would affect Bulgar life. Among other things, Boris asked about the custom by which the Bulgar king ate by himself on his throne while everyone else, including the royal family, ate at a distance.…
The Abraham narrative of Genesis begins with a promise of land and descendants like the sand and stars. It ends with a down payment on the promise. Abraham sojourns in the land, but after Sarah dies he negotiates the purchase of a burial site (Genesis 23). It is the only…
“The Federal Reserve is not your friend,” writes Judy Shelton in The Weekly Standard . Its policies encourage “unjustified risks in pursuit of monetary gain,” give incentives for “speculative conniving instead of virtuous endeavor,” offers reasons to borrow beyond our means to repay. Friends don’t do that to friends. The…
In his The Law and The Elementa of The World An Exegetical Study In Aspects of Pauls Teaching (1964), AJ Bandstra helpfully describes the Greek term stoicheion / stoicheia as a “formal” term. By that he means that it has “by itself no specific content” but “receives its ‘specific content’…
In the midst of a sharp political critique of the American South of today, Garry Wills has some sharp observations on the contribution of the South, especially its literature, to America: “A sense of the past helps explain why America’s southern writers were to the rest of America, in the…
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