Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
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The four living creatures are “in the midst” and “around” the throne of the Enthroned one (Revelation 4:6). They continuously sing the Sanctus, and when they do the 24 elders fall down to prostrate themselves to the Enthroned one (v. 10). Given the arrangement, they cannot help but prostrate themselves…
Bruce Ellis Benson argues in The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue that the distinction of “composing” and “performing” doesn’t “describe very well what musicians actually do.” In place of this “binary” scheme, he offers an “an improvisational model of music, one that depicts composers, performers, and listeners as partners in dialogue.…
Alex Tabarrok has as solution to the problem of capital accumulation that Thomas Piketty identifies as the driver of inequality ( Capital in the Twenty-First Century ): Change the birthrate of the rich: Increasing fertility rates would do the trick: “If every wealthy family has 4 children, wealth per person…
Watch the trailer and tell me that Godzilla hasn’t become Godziller. Now I have proof. One “Dr. M” observes that he’s tripled in size since he was first sited in a movie theater near you: “In 1954 Godzilla was a mere 50 meters (164 ft). In the newest movie, Godzilla…
John sees a book at the right side of the enthroned Father, and a “strong angel” asks, “Who is worthy to take the book and open it by breaking its seals?” The Father Himself is worthy (4:11) to receive all glory, honor, and power. Yet no one mentions Him as…
God created winged-things (Genesis 1:21; kanaf ), and they were preserved in the ark (Genesis 7:14). But there aren’t many references to winged-things in the first book of the Bible. At the Exodus, Yahweh sprouts eagle wings and carries Israel from Egypt (Exodus 19:4, the first use of pterux in…
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