Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Evangelistic Message to the Uninformed: 1 Timothy 3.14-16 Even though this is written as a sermon for delivery, and even though it was preached in a homiletics class, I decided I can’t post it as a sermon because it was not truly preached at a place where nonchristians wanted to…
If we only read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we might get the impression that Jesus’ ascension was on resurrection Sunday. Matthew speaks of going to Galilee but he does not put things into a clear time frame. John shows us that Jesus appeared to the disciples eight days…
The most cursory glance at the history of Western literature reveals that it has been deeply influenced by the Bible. Some of the greatest classics of Western literature draw their plots, characters, and ideas largely from Scripture; Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two of the most notable…
Few themes emerge as profoundly and persistently in the streams of biblical narrative as the conflict between light and darkness, and the juxtaposition of humanity with monstrosity. These themes not only weave through the fabric of Scripture, emerging in stories from Genesis to Revelation, but also stitch together the human…
In John Wenham’s work, Easter Enigma , he devotes an entire chapter to Mary Magdalene, which is rephrased and summarized here. 1 One of the interesting things that Wenham said was that Mary Magdalene was the second “most favored woman in the Bible.” 2 He adds, “Yet apart from a…
God made man to live in a larger relational context, and even in high rebellion, man cannot escape his created nature. Instead, that nature takes revenge on rebellious man. Autonomous and alone, the self craves absolution but recognizes no authority that might give it; it thirsts for glory but rejects…
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RJ Snell is aware of what he calls the “Protestant Prejudice” against natural law, and, though himself an advocate of natural law, admits that Protestants lodge “reasonable and sensible objections” against theoretical models of natural law ( The Perspective of Love , 12). Snell, though, argues that these Protestant objections…
Oliver Harris begins his TLS review of Theodore Ziolkowski’s Lure of the Arcane by pondering why two million people went out to buy Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol the first week it was out: “If those who rushed to consume this tale of ancient mysteries and secret societies were not buying…
In a National Interest review of Evan Osnos’s Age of Ambition , Dan Bluemnthal writes that “neither money, nor nationalism is satisfying the Chinese urge for the good life.” He quotes Haruki Murakami’s observation that nationalism is like “cheap liquor” whose effects don’t last. Blumenthal suggests that “There is a…
In his contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions , Noel Robertson argues that “Archaeology and epic poetry both fix on climate change as a fundamental cause of the Mycenaean collapse.” As the climate cooled and became wetter, the population shifted east, adopted warmer types of clothing, abandoned…
Bernard Suits ( The Grasshopper , 24) begins his effort to define the nature of games by distinguishing games and play from work, defined as technical activity that aims to achieve an end in the most efficient way possible. Distinguishing the two is more difficult that it might appear, and…
David leads the ark procession into Jerusalem wearing a linen ephod (1 Samuel 6). He offers sacrifices after every six paces, gets the ark into a tent, and when it’s all done he blesses the people. He functions in this rite as a royal priest, the chief “layman” in Israel.…
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