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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In the print edition of First Things, Ephraim Radner has some sharp words for Candida Moss’s The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom : “According to Moss’s criteria, if an account of persecution or martyrdom is later than the purported events themselves (hardly easy to…
The presence of a lover can wound. So, of course, can separation. Commenting on the Bride’s search for her lover in the streets of the city, Paul Griffiths writes that “Love’s separation wounds are everywhere in scripture and tradition,” citing Israel’s exile, Peter’s tears, and Mary’s lamentation for her son…
The beloved of the Song can’t respond to Dodi’s call because she doesn’t want to get her feet dirty. After a survey of the biblical data concerning feet, Paul Griffiths ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 120 ) concludes: “When the beloved’s lover is read…
Song of Songs 5 is arranged in a modified chiasm: A. Bride Asleep, Dodi (“my beloved”) speaks B. His locks, v 2 C. He extends hand, arouses her belly, v 4; his hand D. She arises: hands drip with myrrh, v 5 B’. Locks, v 12 D’. His lips drip…
Joe Rigney writes to point out that NT Wright’s interpretation of Romans 4:5 (namely, that “justification of the ungodly” is equivalent to “bringing nations into Abraham’s family”) runs up against a problem in Romans 5:6, where Paul tells us that “at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.” Joe…
One of Holmes’s targets in The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity is the “de Regnon thesis” that Greek and Latin Trinitarian theology took separate paths, the former being more pluralist and the latter more monist. Like other recent writers, Holmes doesn’t believe…
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