Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…
It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…
Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…
It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…
It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…
In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…
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Iain Provan offers this comment in his Ecclesiastes commentary: “Modern people tend to view the movement of history, as far as human beings are concerned, as being from primeval swamp to divinity. The beginning was unpromising, but quite against expectation the forces of evolution have propelled us along, to a…
Ecclesiastes 12:1: Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth. Solomon ends Ecclesiastes, as we have seen, emphasizing again the brevity of life. Life is vapor, all is vapor, a vapor of vapors, most vaporous, superlatively vaporous. Solomon makes it clear at the end of the book that…
Ecclesiastes 11:1: Cast your bread on the face of the waters, for you will find it after many days. We saw in this morning’s sermon Solomon’s image of casting bread on the water encourages a reckless faith, a willingness to act in spite of the risks. You don’t know whether…
What kind of guidance should we give our children? We often focus exclusively on all the things that they may not do. That is a perfectly sound approach, especially for younger children. After all, we worship and serve a God whose first words to newborn Israel were “Thou Shalt Not.”…
Francis Bacon offered this wise caution, “The human understanding is no dry light but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called ‘sciences as one would.’ For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes . . . . Numberless…
Some notes on Freud, mainly as background for discussion of Ernest Jones psycho-analytic treatment of Hamlet, largely based on Merold Westphal’s summary in Suspicion & Faith. FREUD AND SCIENCE Freud is an Enlightenment man who subverted the Enlightenment, an advocate of scientism whose theories rendered scientism impossible. He appears not…
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