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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Deuteronomy and Exodus contradict one another regarding the visibility of God, says Margaret Barker in Temple Mysticism (p. 2). Moses reminds the Israelites, “you heard the sound of words but saw no form” (Deuteronomy 4:12). Exodus 24:10, though, says that Moses and the elders “saw the God of Israel” while…
A favorite passage from Emma . Mrs. Elton is picking strawberries: “The best fruit in England — everybody’s favourite — always wholesome. These the finest beds and finest sorts. Delightful to gather for oneself — the only way of really enjoying them. Morning decidedly the best time — never tired…
My review of Laura Mooneyham White’s Jane Austen’s Anglicanism (2011), first published in Credenda Agenda about a year ago. “She was thoroughly religious and devout,” wrote Rev. Henry Austen soon after the death of his beloved sister. Brother James, also an Anglican minister and a poet, added “Hers, Fancy quick,…
January 29, 1813, the day after Pride and Prejudice was published, Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra. It’s the first critique of the book, as Austen beats the reviewers to the punch: She mentioned a friend who “really does seem to admire Elizabeth,:” and adds: “I must confess that…
My favorite passage from Northanger Abbey (Dover Thrift Editions) . Henry Tilney has taken upon himself to instruct Catherine Morland about the aesthetics and the theory of the picturesque: “Delighted with [Catherine’s] progress, and fearful of wearying her with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline,…
Colossians 1:17: He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Pastor Sumpter has said it all: Jesus is enough. If you have Jesus, you have everything you could ever want, more than you could ever need. If you have Jesus, you have knowledge of the will…
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