Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
An addendum to the earlier post on Romans. In my first essay, I pointed out how the role of the sin of Joseph’s brothers in bringing about Joseph’s exaltation in Egypt, and the resulting salvation of the world from famine, might show us and explanation to some of the distinctive…
When Paul wrote to the Romans, he was obviously writing a missionary support letter of a sort. One can read Romans 1.15 and then jump into 15.23 (“[S]ince I no longer have any room. . . .) without losing virtually any coherence. Yet into this letter he “dropped,” as it…
The Westminster Confession says that each passage has one meaning , not many, and that gets picked up on by lots of people who are suspicious of and do not like typological readings of Scripture. I will defer to wiser and more learned heads than mine as to exactly what…
By arresting, torturing, and killing Jesus, the authorities thought that they were securing well being and peace again in their society by means of the tried and true method of a single-victim scapegoat. Everyone’s thirst for violence will be satisfied and we can get on with the business of everyday…
This is the second in a series of essays on "Continuing the Reformation." In his important though sadly unavailable book, Calvin's Doctrine of the Church (Brill, 1970), Benjamin Charles Milner argues persuasively that in Calvin's view God's perfect order for His creation, an order that was to grow and develop…
Trinity House Fellow James Jordan recently gave a series of lectures in London on how to read the Bible. They are available online at NorthLondonChurch.org .
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There are ten uses of “eye” in Revelation, nine of them in the plural (the exception is 1:7). The uses of the plural fall into several categories: 1) The eyes of Jesus are flames of fire (1:14; 2:18; 19:12) or the seven Spirits (5:6), which are flames (4:5). 2) The…
Common grace has played a large role in Calvinist thinking about culture. For some, it is this general grace of God - His restraint of sin, His gifts of cultural skill to believers and unbelievers - that makes common culture possible. Special grace and special revelation are for the church;…
Russell Shorto’s Amsterdam is not only a biography of the city, but a genealogy of the “tattered, ancient, much misunderstood word ‘liberalism,’” an Amsterdam-born set of habits. As Philipp Blom sums up the argument in a TLS review , Dutch liberalism was economically motivated: “Dutch tolerance was never ‘nice.’ It…
Daniel Gabelman’s George MacDonald: Divine Carelessness and Fairytale Levity spends a lot of time developing a historic perspective on seriousness, lightness, and levity. Dante, Shakespeare, Byron, the book of Ecclesiastes, and a somewhat revisionary analysis of Victorian culture all contribute to the argument. But that is mainly background to Gabelman’s…
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy observed that moderns are as inclined to divine service and attachment to gods as the benighted premoderns they mock. He doesn’t mean it as a metaphor: “what is meant here by the inclusive title divine service embraces all sociologists. All sociologists cultivate a form of divine service. .…
Theodore Jennings wants to socialize and politicize Paul. He thinks that highlighting Paul’s concerns for classic political issues like law and justice does better justice to what Paul actually wrote ( Outlaw Justice ). But then his agenda bumps up against the text. On the catena of Psalm texts in…
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