Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Imagine driving up to Canada and stopping at a restaurant to get a bite to eat. While you’re sitting at the table, an enthusiastic young man comes over to you and says in an excited voice, "Are you an American?" You reply, "Yes, I am." "Wonderful! I have so little…
1 O Lord Almighty, God of our fathers, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and of their righteous posterity; 2 You who have made heaven and earth with all their order; 3 who have shackled the sea by Your word ofcommand, who have confined the deep and sealed it with…
Part 1: 1When King Astyages was laid with his fathers, Cyrus the Persian received his kingdom. 2 And Daniel was a companion of the king, and was the most honored of his friends. 3Now the Babylonians had an idol called Bel, and every day they spent on it twelve bushels…
This debate has been going on for some time. But with few exceptions, almost all explanations of Presbyterian church polity claim that a “church” (meaning a single local congregation) must be ruled by “a plurality of elders” of whom one may happen to teach and work full-time doing so. This…
I hope that those who are advocating reading more of the ancient, "classical" literature of the ancient, "classical" world, are also promoting the Apocrypha. I’m afraid that many Christians don’t realize what great literature much of the Apocrypha is. It is not, of course, inspired by God, and perhaps because…
PRESBYTERIANISM is a term referring to a system of government in the Church. It is commonly contrasted with Congregationalism and Episcopalianism. Presbyter is a Greek word that is translated as “elder” in our English New Testaments. Thus, Presbyterianism is commonly defined as “rule by elders.” This is a misleading definition.…
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Isaiah’s promise that strangers and foreigners will tend flocks, farm, and maintain vineyards for Israel (61:5) makes it sound like the nations will do the menial work while Israel lives in cultured leisure. I suspect something else is in view. Flocks, grain, and wine are liturgical materials in the Hebrew…
The anointed Servant proclaims Jubilee - liberty to captives (Isaiah 61:1; cf. Leviticus 25:20). Jubilee gives not only freedom from debt-slavery but a return to ancestral property. Liberty takes physical form in possession of land. So Isaiah is still talking about Jubilee when he promises “double” in the land (v.…
Isaiah 61 closes with a brief song, apparently sung by the anointed Servant of verse 1. He is dressed up as a glorified Adam in a new garden that teems with righteousness and praise. The servant is vested and robed, an appropriate sequel to the anointing. That is enough to…
In his contribution to Sacrifice in Religious Experience , Tsvi Abusch observes that the center of Mesopotamian cult was not the killing or burning of an animal, nor the festive meal that often followed sacrifice. The central event was feeding the god: “Food was placed before the god and consumed…
The war in heaven (Revelation 12:7-12) looks like an even contest. On the one side stand Michael and his angels and on the other the dragon and his angels (v. 7). But the text is organized to show that the two sides are not as symmetrical as they initially seem:…
There is war in heaven (Revelation 12), and Michael casts the dragon from heaven to earth. Good thing for heaven; not so good for earth, because the dragon comes down enraged and begins to attack the mother and her children. But the dragon is eventually cast out of earth too,…
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