Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The sin of Ham in Genesis 9 continues to elicit comment, since it seems mysterious. We read in 9:21-23 that Noah uncovered himself inside (the covering of) his tent, that Ham (entered the privacy of Noah’s tent) and saw his father’s (not “Noah’s”, n.b.) nakedness, that Ham told his two…
Recently the magazine Tabletalk published a series of essays against Calvinist theologian N. T. Wright. The black cover of this issue lets us know just how dangerous this man is. But how dangerous is N. T. Wright? Well, he’s dangerous to some people, but not to others. Let’s see: He…
You need to read Rob Rayburn’s defense of his presbytery to the PCA SJC (Standing Judicial Committee). If you’ve been out of the loop on this, that’s okay. But what has happened in the last few years is that people have made accusations against Peter Leithart, and in response the…
What does it mean to read the Bible as inspired literature? The method is not new nor is it uncommon in Dutch Reformed circles. Exegesis must be Christocentric, plenary (all the text serves a theological purpose), respect the context in God’s redemptive plan, and plumb the full literary depth of…
Reading in John Calvin’s sermons on 2 Samuel today, I came across this wonderful statement. This comes from a sermon preached on July 3, 1562, “The True Worship of God,” an exposition of 2 Sam. 6:1-7. Calvin is discussing the implications of the affirmation that Yaweh, the God of Israel,…
A great deal of confusion about the relative value of “virginity” and marriage can be avoided if one pays careful attention to the text of Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7. The two most important observations are: 1) that Paul’s specific recommendations are made because of the “impending crisis” (v.…
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B eginning in 1559, the magistrates of the German city of Wesel, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, required the citizens to commune together (Jesse Spohnholz, “Multiconfessional Celebration of the Eucharist in Sixteenth-Century Wesel”). The city had been the site of intra-Lutheran struggles, and Calvinist immigrants were moving in. Worried about…
M olly Ball's Atlantic piece on “ America’s empty-church problem ” is a must-read. It provides a penetrating, and sobering analysis of the political shifts that came to the surface in the 2016 Presidential election. Trump's election was not , she argues, the triumph of the religious right or the…
M atthew Bates argues in Salvation by Allegiance Alone that “our contemporary Christian culture often comes prepackaged with functional ideas and operative definitions of belief, faith, works, salvation, heaven, and the gospel that in various ways truncate and distort the full message of the good news about Jesus the Messiah…
A fter summarizing recent work on temple building in the Ancient Near East ( 1 & 2 Chronicles , 227–229), Mark Boda takes note of the differences between the accounts of Solomon's temple building in Kings and Chronicles, with an eye to the question of whether or not the Chronicler…
I n the blink of an eye, globalization has changed from the inevitable future and the panacea for all human ills to a curse word and the source of all American misery. It takes guts to speak up for globalization these days. Brent Waters has guts. He no doubt began…
P aul said that God gives us abundantly more than we can ask or imagine, according to the resurrection power of Jesus in us (Ephesians 3:20). Solomon could have told us as much. When Yahweh appears to Solomon at Gibeon, He offers to give the king whatever he asks (2…
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