Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Part 1 We do not understand the role of women in ministry because we do not understand the role of men in ministry. We do not understand the role of men in ministry because we do not understand the church. We do not understand the church because the consumer culture…
1. One structure The Creation account (G1:1-2:4) conspicuously conveys meaning using the literary shape of the text. The narrative is told with formulaic patterns, repetitions, and parallelism. The Garden account is different. It is viewed as a separate text, with its own author, employing its own structure. This second account’s…
I was reading James Jordan’s Creation in Six Days while also preparing for Trinity Sunday in which the gospel reading is John 3:1-15. As providence would have it Jordan dropped an easter egg for me along the lines of baptism. In chapter 5 he points out, “ On the second…
It's true. There is no verse in the New Testament that commands or records an infant baptism. This poses a problem for some Christians. Those who only look for explicit commands, or those whose theology is limited to the New Testament, will conclude that infant baptism is not biblical and…
1. Goal This paper’s goal is to identify and describe a literary strategy employed by scripture, namely using two episodes that cover similar territory or themes using details drawn from opposite ends of a number of spectrums. Once described the reader may recognize numerous other instances of this strategy in…
Numbers 14 records the tragic story of Israel’s decision to rebel against Yahweh and Moses. Twelve spies had been sent into the land to bring back a report to Israel. All twelve spies agreed: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey”…
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Charles Hodge challenged the abolitionist view that slavery was always sinful so effectively that his essay was included in the pro-slavery compendium Cotton is King . Mark Noll points out that the editor deleted Hodges dire prophecies about the future of American slavery (this in 1835): “The South . .…
Yahweh places words in the mouths of prophets through His Spirit. Sometimes, though, the words that He places there are spoken back to Him. Inspired by the Spirit, the prophet becomes part of an internal conversation within Yahweh. Hence: Yahweh, Spirit, and Prophet = Father, Spirit, Son.
INTRODUCTION Proverbs 24:10-20 continues, structurally speaking, in the same pattern as the 22:22-24:9. Instead of the two-line Proverbs we find elsewhere, these are small paragraphs, at least four lines long. 24:10-20 returns again and again to situations of distress, attack, battle, and the success of enemies. Verse 10 talks about…
After the flood, Noah releases a dove, which finds no rest ( manoach ; Gen 8:9). The ark finds rest ( nuach ) on Ararat (8:4). It is one of a dozen puns on the name of Noah in the flood story. Centuries later, the ark of the covenant (not…
Matthew begins and ends with scenes of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In chapters 1-2, the Mary and Joseph are his parents; in chapter 27, there’s Joseph of Arimathea and Mary has doubled into Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary.” The first story is a story of life, the second a…
Barnes writes, “when Christians were executed by imperial order under Decius and Valerian, crowds still openly jeered at martyrs and their sympathizers. In the ‘Great Persecution,’ however, evidence of similar hostility is almost entirely lacking; by the last decades of the third century, the Christian church had become an established…
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