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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Joseph Frank closes his review of two recent books on Maritain and early 20th century Catholicism with this charming scene: “Maritain returned for a last visit to the United States in 1966 to say farewell to old friends and to visit the grave of his sister-in-law Vera buried in Princeton.…
2 Kings 10:26-27: They brought the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them. And the broke down the sacred pillar of Baal, and tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump to this day. One day, some people came to Jesus with…
2 Kings 10:16: And Jehu said, Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. Jehu leads a bloody revolution that overthrows the house of Ahab. He kills Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah. He has Jezebel killed, and orders the decapitation of 70 sons of…
As Jehu marched toward the capital city of Samaria, he encountered 42 men from the house of David. Jehu took them alive, killed them at a pit at a place called Beth-eked, and then continued on toward Samaria. This incident gives us pause. Jehu was anointed to be the avenger…
Derek Jacobi wrote a foreword for a new Oxfordian biography of Edward de Vere, suggesting that de Vere wrote the plays because the plays were written by an actor and de Vere was an actor. Say what? The TLS reviewer notes that Shakespeare, alone among all the suggested authors of…
John Dover Wilson puzzles over Hamlet, Act 3, where Claudius is apparently unaffected by the dumb show that re-enacts his murder of Hamlet, Sr. Dover Wilson concludes that Claudius must have been distracted during the dumb show, and missed it. Dramatically, that may work. Thematically, the inefficacy of the dumb…
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