Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…
One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…
Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…
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1 Chronicles 11–12 form a unit, framed by references to David’s coronation ceremony at Hebron: A. Gathering at Hebron, conquest of Jerusalem, 11:1–10 B. David’s followers while a fugitive, 11:11–47 B'. David’s host at Ziklag, 12:1–22 A’. Coronation festival at Hebron, 12:23–40 11:1-10 is itself framed by references to “all…
I n a 2014 piece published in First Things , I offered a “wish list” for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn't cover everything. It doesn't mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism…
D ante is moving through the circle of the lustful (Comedy, Canto 5) and sees a host of classical lovers. Among them is Semiramis, less famous than Dido or Cleopatra, but an exceedingly important illustration of how lust misshapes language and law. Rodney Payton explains ( A Modern Reader’s Guide…
E xplaining the moral structure of hell in Canto 11 of Dante’s Comedy , Virgil lays out three general categories of sin: incontinence, malice, and mad bestiality (lines 83-4). That’s not quite what we expect, or what most commentators see. It seems more like incontinence, violence, and fraud. Incontinent sins…
R odney Payton ( Modern Reader’s Guide to Dante’s Inferno , 88–89) observes that “Dante’s vocabulary is rich in words denoting water,” including “the Italian words for water, river, little river, bog, marsh, stream, pond, slough, fount, and waves, at lest. In many cases the nouns are modified by adjectives…
A ntonio of Venice is inexplicable sad. So is Portia of Belmont, her “little body . . . aweary of this great world” ( Merchant of Venice 2.1). Antonio and Portia have all that they could want. They aren’t anxious about money; neither is pining for love. Why so sad?…
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