Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh answered him, "Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! This one will restrain My people" (1 Samuel 9:17) Many English versions of 1 Samuel 9:17 read, "This one will rule over My people," but that is a mistranslation. The Hebrew verb is `atsar…
We have arrived at the tentative date of A.M. 3474 for the decree of Cyrus, and we have determined to operate as if the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 are literal years. We also decided that Messiah the Prince arrives at the beginning of the 70th week, after the 69…
The book of Proverbs appears as a largely random collection of aphorisms drawn from experience saturated in law. Despite its random arrangement, however, the book does have an over-arching structure that reinforces its main themes. One way to gather clues regarding the structure of a biblical book (or any book)…
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of reading the first draught of Gary North’s Economic Commentary on Leviticus , which will be out some time next year. Gary’s comments on Leviticus 27 were stimulating, and caused me to take another look at the passage. The results, which I sent…
As we have seen in this series, each time there is a new covenant, there is a break in the year-by-year chronology. At the same time, each time the break is crossed by information provided in the text. Thus, the year-by-year chronology breaks down at the birth of Abraham, but…
The Openness of Literature Let’s discuss literature for a moment. There are two ways a story or novel can close. The first is called poetic justice. When a story ends with poetic justice, the bad guys are all punished and the good guys are all rewarded. This kind of story…
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Barth offers these wise words about the purpose of dogmatics (which consists, for Barth, of the correction, clarification, and criticism of church proclamation by measuring proclamation against the Word of God in the Bible): “Repetitive exposition according to the intentions of the theologians named will, of course, be indispensable for…
And it was according to the finishing of Shlomoh to build the house of Yahweh And the house of the king And all the desire of Shlomoh which he took pleasure to do. And appeared Yahweh to Shlomoh a second time According as he appeared to him in Gibeon. And…
Ask any church planter, and he’ll tell you that one of the dangers of starting a new work is that it tends to attract all the people who are disaffected and discontented from the churches of the surrounding area. They have made an utter nuisance of themselves in their own…
As noted in my sermon outline earlier this week, there is an intriguing reversal going on with Solomon and Pharaoh in 1 Kings 9. Solomon does not wipe out the Canaanites (v. 20-21), but Pharaoh does (v. 16). On the other hand, Solomon is acting like a Pharaoh, not only…
Yahweh’s “Name” must be His personal presence. He “consecrates” the temple by setting His name in the house (1 Ki 9:3, 7), and consecration is accomplished by the presence of Yahweh, particularly the presence of His glory (Ex 29:43). Name and glory must be coordinate if not identical realities. The…
Though resting a theological case on a linguistic “accident” would be a mistake, it is intriguing that the Hebrew word for “convert” is the same as the Hebrew word for “go apostate.” The word in both cases is SHUB, “turn,” which means “turn away” or “turn toward” or “turn back”…
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