Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…
A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…
The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…
The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…
I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…
Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…
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Jenson admits in an essay on atonement in Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics that no single theory of atonement has won consensus. Some, he writes, “make a virtue of this proliferation of proposals and the absence of form or informal consensus around any one of them; others see in it a…
Thomas McCall acknowledegs in his Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? that patristic and medieval writers weren’t “fond of such expressions as ‘center of consciousness and will,’” but argues that “it is not at all difficult to find language that coheres well” with such a formulation (238). He summarizes an argument from…
Amy DeRogatis begins her study of Evangelical ideals of sex, Saving Sex , by recounting Texas Pastor Ed Young’s 2012 “bed-in,” which he held on the roof of Fellowship Church. With his wife, he spent 24 hours live-streaming interviews urging Evangelicals to have sex more often. Young considers himself a…
Extreme by Emma Barrett and Paul Martin “examines extraordinary human endeavour and the psychological qualities that underpin it.” The authors are interested in assessing the psychological benefits and damage brought on by encounters with extreme environments - mountains, the deep ocean - and extreme activities like cave diving. They want…
One of the crucial differences is the role of death. According to Heidel ( Babylonian Genesis , 137-8), “The destructive power of death, according to Babylonian and Assyrian speculations, extended not only over mankind and over plant and animal life but even over the gods. While the proverbially immortal gods…
Alexander Heidel ( Babylonian Genesis , 235) notes that the word for “ark” in Greek accounts of the flood is not the normal word for boat but kibotos , a chest or coffer. This term was used to distinguish the Phrygian (Syrian) city of Apamea from other cities of the…
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