Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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W riting in The American Conservative , Paul Gottfried pinpoints the conservative quandary regarding Putin. On the one hand: “Putin makes no secret about his associations with the Right, whether he is speaking out against the power of LGBT activists in the West, praising the cultural influence of the Russian…
What follows is a rough structural analysis of Philippians. Rough, but perhaps it illuminates: A. Joy in imprisonment, 1:1–16 B. Live like citizens of the gospel, 1:27–30 C. Have the mind of Christ, 2:1–11 D. Shared joy, 2:12–18 E. Timothy and Epaphroditus, 2:19–30 D'. Rejoice in the Lord, 3:1 C'.…
P aul can sound like the Solomon of Proverbs: “Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15–17). Wisdom…
T roilus appears in the Iliad and Aeneid , but only in death scenes. Ancient epics don't tell the story of his tragic love for Criseyde or Cressida. Characteristically enough, the love story became the main Troilus legend during the middle ages, first recounted by Benoit's Roman of Troie ,…
R ichard Brantley states the thesis of his 1984 Locke, Wesley, and the Method of English Romanticism early in his book: First, Locke's theory of knowledge grounds the intellectual method of Wesley's Methodism. And second, Wesley's Lockean thought (i.e., his reciprocating notions that religious truth is concerned with experiential presuppositions,…
W hy does the Chronicler begin his narrative with Saul, and why with Saul's death? As William Riley argues in his King and Cultus in Chronicles , the Saul narrative introduces topics that shadow the account of the Davidic kings. Specifically, the account of Saul's death raises the question of…
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