Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christmas is a joyful season, but for many it turns into something else. Instead of joy, it is full of disappointment and unhappiness. Instead of an occasion for family fellowship, it becomes an opportunity for opening old wounds, reigniting old arguments, giving new life to rancor that should have died…
The Temple of Time The “covenant-literary matrix” of the Bible is not a pattern imposed upon the text, but the internal logic of its arrangement. This fundamental structure, functioning at multiple levels simultaneously, is a ceaseless reiteration of God’s primary theme. It is an algorithm forged in the furnace of…
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus, Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. [1] That the author of Kings should date the start of the building of the temple from the Exodus is noteworthy. In Exodus 15:17, in Moses’ song following the…
Philip Schaff, a German Reformed theologian, states in The Principle of Protestantism that the material principle of Protestantism is “the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by the merit of Christ alone through faith.” This is the core message of the Church which leads “to the abandonment…
“Religion” is an attempt to create or build a tower with a top, or to build a temple that is self-contained. The story of The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is the story of mankind’s attempt to create a world that is self-contained and does not need God. All…
In the first essay in this series, I presented a case for dating Matthew before AD 70, contrary to the present scholarly consensus. In this essay, I intend to present cultural, personal, ecclesiological, and theological arguments for a very early date for Matthew. [1] The cultural argument concerns literacy in…
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At every stage of His incarnation, Jesus is involved with the Spirit. Jesus was conceived by the Spirit, anointed with the Spirit at His baptism, offered Himself in the Spirit on the cross, rose by the power of the Spirit, and then at His ascension, the Father conferred the fullness…
Dr. Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, was the first Nevin Lecturer at Trinity House in February 2014 on the topic of “Baptist Sacramental Theology.” Videos of those lectures are now available here . In an 1844 sermon on Ephesian 4, John Williamson Nevin declared that “unity…
The Eucharist is a memorial of Jesus, a ritual portrayal of the church God promised to form. It points toward a future union. Because it is a memorial, it is also the path toward that ultimate goal .
The possibility that the Babylonian “creation” stories were influenced by the biblical account are usually dismissed quickly for chronological reasons. The Babylonian texts are, it is said, much earlier than Genesis. John Walton thinks this quick dismissal too quick ( Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context , 36): “Though…
Ronald Byars’s Come and See is a piece of theological/religious reporting, but on a topic that doesn’t often get press coverage - the movement among Presbyterians (in the PCUSA) toward weekly communion. Byars documents that the number of churches that celebrate communion each week is increasing, examines the pastoral challenges…
In the blessing he pronounced over Israel, Aaron was to say “Yahweh make His face to shine upon you” (Numbers 6). Why this particular form of blessing? God’s face shines like the sun, and so gives life and health to all it shines on. If a man is like a…
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