Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
10. Do not slander [tattle on] a slave to his master, Lest he curse [denounce] you and you be found guilty. The Sojourner of Proverbs 30 is a humble man. He makes this clear in verses 2-4, where he says that he is stupider than anyone else on earth, but…
In retrospect and at first glance, many of the issues that have plagued and divided the Church seem incredibly trivial. The Quartodecimians were branded as heretics for celebrating Easter on 14 Nisan. One of the issues that divided the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 was the kind of bread…
The gifts of the wise men have been commonly interpreted as royal gifts to the infant King of the Jews. Each of the three gifts is, indeed, connected with kings and kingship in Scripture. The Lord’s anointed is pictured wearing a crown of gold in Psalm 21:3, and the gold…
The Church is not in good shape. Nearly every week we hear about another prominent Christian leader who has fallen into scandalous sin. Many shepherds feed their flocks a diet of baby food, if not outright poison. Few Churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper regularly, and few Christians appreciate its importance.…
Two things I asked of Thee, Do not refuse me before I die: Keep deception and words of falsehood far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches, Feed me with the food that it my portion, Lest I be full and deny Thee, And say, "Who is the LORD?"…
During the Middle Ages, Joseph, the husband of Mary, was the butt of many jokes. Medieval theater and art often depicted him as something of a buffoon, decidedly marginal to the gospel story. In part, this was the unfortunate obverse of the exaltation of Mary; any man would suffer by…
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1 Peter 2:9: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people chosen for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, Israel’s priests were living…
The righteous man is a green tree planted by a river, the people of God are cedars and palms in the temple, the lover in the Song of Songs climbs his beloved to gather the fruit of love. People are trees, and trees are ladders to heaven. Jesus is the…
Kenneth Burke argues in an essay from Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare (p. 158) that King Lear focuses on the “paradox of substance.” He defines this as follows: “the quandaries whereby one’s personal identity becomes indistinguishably woven into the things, situations, and relationships with which one happens to be identified .…
My friend John Barach offers a further gloss on the Richard Wilbur poem I discussed here yesterday. He suggests that the final lines about the milkweed possessing the field allude to Psalm 37:9, 11: Those who wait on the Lord, the humble, inherit the land. And of course that anticipates…
Obama’s re-election leaves social conservatives feeling as if the earth trembled and shifted. Writing in the Weekly Standard , Christopher Caldwell explains why: Obama won as a values candidate. It’s just that his values are opposite those of religious conservatives. When Obama “set out to pick a fight with the…
I argued earlier this week that, as a matter of historical fact, Western economies have not been state-free zones. My question here is more theoretical and general: Is it even possible to have a state-free economy? Yes, at a small scale, in, say, a tribal economy. But then in a…
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