Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After Elijah’s battered and depressed howling in the wilderness it must have seemed like the new prophet came eating and drinking. Which is a pattern we see again in the New Testament—John is explicitly identified with Elijah (Luke 1.17, Matthew 11.14), howling the truth in the wilderness that the people…
Reading Robert Conquest’s biography of Stalin 1 has opened new lines of meditation on Paul’s command in Colossians 3:9. But before turning to that, let me briefly indicate what Paul is not saying. He is not saying that there is no such thing as righteous deception, such as Jael practiced…
You won’t find wild lions today in Israel. But lions used to range much more widely than they do now, and in biblical times they were a menace that shepherds in Israel had to contend with. David did as a shepherd boy, and Amos—who “ was among the sheepbreeders of…
I would like to remedy a flaw for English speakers in the book of Genesis. A flaw that may seem innocuous, but we must remember where the devil lives...in the details. If we are to fear the Lord, it behooves our translation committees to ensure that the fearfulness of God…
While reading at my son’s baseball game this week, a mom from our school approached me and asked if I was reading Dante. I wasn’t, but our sons are both reading Divine Comedy in their sophomore literature class, so it was a reasonable question. What unfolded was a quick conversation…
In the first two essays in this series, I addressed the question of how the nations would learn about Israel’s Torah, in the second essay especially emphasizing the aesthetic aspects of Israel’s testimony. For we naturally wonder: How would people in Mesopotamia or Egypt, not to mention the rest of…
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Hope is one of the traditional “theological virtues” – faith, hope and love. Hebrews 11 defines faith as hope, and for Paul “hope,” like Victor and Faith, is another name for Jesus (1 Timothy 1:1). In our sermon text, Paul encourages hope by saying God is able to do “exceeding…
There’s a slight false step, in the midst of a very helpful point, in Bruce Ellis Benson’s superb Graven Ideologies : He has been explaining the “double transcendence” of Platonism - metaphysical (Truth’s being is beyong the sensible world) and epistemological (human beings can get beyond the sensible world to…
In his Teaching Company tapes on Bach and the Baroque (recommended), Robert Greenberg suggests an historical sequence that accounts for the development of German music: Music for singing, which in the period was largely church music, must take account of the language in which the music is sung. German is…
Is the “mystery of Christ” in Ephesians 3:4 a mystery about Christ or is Christ Himself the mystery? Let’s take the latter option - Christ Himself is the mystery (cf. Colossians 1:27). How does that connect with the way Paul unpacks the mystery in terms of Jew/Gentile union (v. 6)?…
NT Wright points out that the ascent and descent language in Ephesians 4:7-10 is reminiscent of Moses ascending Mount Sinai and then descending with the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Jesus ascends to heaven, and when He returns He does not bring the law of commandments on tablets of stone,…
Macbeth hopes that his one act of regicide will stop the flow of time - “if ‘twere done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.” But it can’t be done when it’s done; actions provoke reactions. He ends tragically because he cannot trammel up the consequence. Time…
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