Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christians get sex wrong when we start from the wrong end. We start from human desires, passions, biological drives and “needs.” These are treated as givens, as the base-line natural reality of human sexuality. Then we come to the Bible and find, to our surprise, that God places all kinds…
Why isn't Proverbs better known as the Bible's book on "manliness"? I use quotation marks because the term almost seems archaic in our present culture, along with "manhood." Perhaps the Church is too embarrassed to admit the Bible addresses that much attention to the topic. But another reason can be…
In certain evangelical Christian churches it is the tradition to exalt preaching above the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Ever since the rise of Revivalist preachers pushing for conversions, the practice has cast doubt upon the possibility of Baptism or the Lord’s Supper being a “means of grace”…
Perhaps one of the most stimulating sections of Yoram Hazony’s The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture addresses the question of how we are to discern the meaning of biblical narratives, especially how biblical narratives might present arguments of a more general nature. Hazony quotes John Barton’s remarks about the difficulty of…
In this slender volume, Joseph Minich (Ph.D. student at the University of Dallas) attempts to answer some of the deepest questions of human existence. With his honesty, his probing questioning, his wide reading, and his ability to plunge beneath superficial answers, he provides a helpful source of reflection for fellow…
A Closer Look at Noah’s Post-Flood Humiliation In Genesis 9:20-27 My wife is currently leading a Bible study through Genesis for a group of insatiable Bible students. Because she is a deep thinker and has a high view of inspiration, there is no passage she is unwilling to face head…
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After His baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and to be tempted by the devil for forty days and nights. The first temptation concerned food. Jesus was the new Adam, facing a food test not in a garden but in the wilderness. Jesus was the new Israel, hungering…
Mitt Romney bowed out before he embarrassed himself with further losses. He had no chance, and his exit is a bow to the inevitable. But give him his due: While Clinton and Obama spend millions fighting each other over the next few months, Romney has given McCain time to raise…
In a recent article on Ruth 1:16-17 in CBQ , Mark Smith comments on the relation between covenantal and familial terminology in Ruth and elsewhere. Even when covenants have political dimensions, as in international treaties, they are fundamentally mechanisms for extending kin ties beyond immediate blood relations. Smith writes: “A…
Ruth begins with death - the death of the land in famine, the death of exile, the death of Elimelech, the death of Naomi’s sons, the death of Naomi’s future. Naomi goes out full, and comes back empty. Ruth 1 is a perfect tragic story, a story of endings and…
Hazlitt defends Helena’s ( All’s Well ) virtue in a gentlemanlike way: “The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous…
Abimelech gains the support of the Shechemites by emphasizing his kinship through his mother - “I am your bone and your flesh” (Judges 9:2). The Shechemites resonate to the rhetoric: “He is our brother,” they say (9:3). It’s not a stable partnership. Kinship isn’t a sound foundation for kingship, at…
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