Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God…
With the surprising discovery of the Nelda Boswell scroll historians have deciphered its contents and concluded that the apostle Paul returned to the region of Galatia shortly after he wrote the letter that we call Galatians. The evidence suggests that a number of local pastors, elders, and deacons, along with…
Second Temple Judaism was a form of covenantal nomism, according to E. P. Sanders’ terminology. This means that Torah-observance was a way of expressing loyalty to the Lord of the covenant who had graciously elected Israel. I think Sanders’ view (taken up in bits and pieces and with some modifications…
We often hear that the key to Christian obedience is thankfulness for what God has done. But the Bible stresses faith and hope much more than gratitude. The Baptist pastor and author John Piper has written, “Nowhere in the Bible is gratitude connected explicitly with obedience as a motivation. We…
One of the questions that is commonly asked about Tom Wright regards his teaching about how Paul uses the term “the righteousness of God.” Since Wright’s interpretation of the term in Paul’s epistles is commonly mentioned in passing but rarely analyzed, it seems like a good idea to explicitly spell…
If God promised a certain land to the seed of Abraham, saying that it would be theirs “forever” (Gen. 13:15), why do Reformed churches teach that the Jews permanently lost their right to the land? What about all these Old Testament “forever” promises and prophesies made to the Jews? How…
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Writing in the 1610s, William Barclay pointed to the astonishing paradoxical benefits of smoking: “Tobacco is hote, because it hath acrimonie; yet, it is cold because it is narcoticke and stupefactiue, it maketh drunken, and refresheth, it maketh hungrie and filleth, it maketh thirstie and quencheth thirst. Finalie, to bring…
Michael D. Hurley has a fine review of Nicholas Boyle’s Sacred and Secular Scriptures: A Catholic Approach to Literature in the Feb 11 issue of TLS . While Boyle contests the efforts of Herder and Schleiermacher to reduce “Word to word,” he still emphasizes the continuity between the Bible and…
Jesus came to fulfill the law. Jesus consistently flouted the ceremonial laws of cleanliness. How can we put these two statements together? Perhaps the “uncleanness” laws are misnamed. The intention of the laws is not to invent new ways to be estranged and exiled from God. The heart of the…
A student perceptively suggests that first-century Jews had become so attached to waiting for the Messiah that they could not bring themselves to acknowledge the fulfillment of their hopes. Against all that the prophets had taught, they had become tragic, and unfulfilled longings had become (and still remain) the essence…
God has enemies. You need only pick up the Psalter to discover this. ?The enemies of Yahweh will be like the glory of the pastures, they vanish ?Elike smoke they vanish away?E(Psalm 37). ?Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned obedience to You?E(Ps 66). ?Let…
Part 1: Dionysus against the Crucified. Section 1: City and the Wastes. Hart raises the question, What is postmodernism? And he answers by citing Milbank?s claim that postmodern French philosophers, for all their differences, are united in an ?ontology of violence.?EBeginning from a radical historicism and perspectivism, postmodernists move to…
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