Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is often formulated along dispensational lines. The Holy Spirit’s work in the Old Testament, we tend to think, was earthly, concerned with political and military leadership, while in the New Testament the Spirit’s work has to do with mediating salvation achieved by Christ.…
Homosexuality and the Love of Death Some years ago (September, 1980) Midge Decter published in Commentary one of the most illuminating pieces that I have ever seen on homosexuality. It was a very autobiographical piece dealing with her own summer vacation experiences on Fire Island off of New Jersey. When…
C. The Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39) (continued for previous issue) A final corroboration of this interpretive hypothesis comes from what we might call the "Amalek Pattern" in the Bible. Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh (ch. 12), settles down and…
Speaking of the Church, Romans 11:16-17 says, "And if the root be holy, the branches are also. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the…
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching (tupos didaskales) to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:17-18). In his study of the use of…
John Owen (1616-1683), Biblical Theology, or the Nature, Origin, Development, and Study of Theological Truth in Six Books, translated by Stephen P. Westcott (Pittsburgh: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, [1661] 1994), hardcover, 911 pages, $50.00. Here for the first time in English is one of Owen’s most important Latin works, along…
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An addendum to my post at firstthings.com today: There’s a generational issue that the aging leaders of the religious right needs to be addressed in a serious way. Most of my students and younger colleagues do not identify in any way with the old religious right. They are anti-abortion and…
According to the Chronicler, Hezekiah is a new David. He “did right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his father David had done” (2 Chronicles 29:2). Like David in 1 Chronicles, Hezekiah organizes the priesthood and Levitical choir to reconsecrate the temple (2 Chronicles 29:3-36) and gathers…
Next door at the main First Things site, I offer my reflections on the import of Tuesday’s election: www.firstthings.com.
“John Calvin was no monastic.” Matthew Myer Boulton states the obvious ( Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation, and the Future of Protestant Theology , 28). Calvin is a critic of the monasticism of his time, and even criticizes the withdrawal of monks in earlier, better times. What’s not…
Matthew Myer Boulton argues that the reforms in worship inaugurated by Calvin were intended to establish a worship that “was in the first place a matter of verbal, catechetical, intellectual engagement with God’s word revealed in Scripture and expounded from the pulpit” ( Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation,…
In a review of Richard Sherlock’s Nature’s End: The Theological Meaning of the New Genetics (Religion and Contemporary Culture) in Touchstone , J. Daryl Charles responds to Sherlock’s claim that in both Thomas and Calvin “natural law in any of its forms is ultimately an inadequate moral guide.” The Calvinist…
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