Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions…
Stones External and Internal The modern practice of dismantling the Bible into a shambles of documents authored in response to disparate historical events rather than viewing it as a unified testimony inspired by God is a surefire way to miss what is actually going on in the text. This failure…
King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by Zerach. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end,…
What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. It's can serve as a summary of Paul's letter to the Romans, and throws some important light on the themes of that letter. Paul begins his sermon with a quick…
Iago as Tempter The answer to our first question — whether or not Othello is really great tragedy — has already pointed the way to the answer for the second question — Was Othello a noble Moor or a fool? The two questions, of course, are necessarily related. The fall…
When Adam McIntosh was ordained as Pastor of Saint David’s Church (CREC) in Houston on June 11, 2017, it was the culmination of decades of preparation. Adam is the product of two continents and three Christian traditions. Born in Paducah, Kentucky, he lived his early years partly in Jericho, where…
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In his recently re-released Bioethics: A Primer for Christians , Gilbert Meilaender discusses baptism to formulate a Christian understanding of the person. Baptism, he points out, is a communal act but also individualizing: “the first thing to note about baptism is that it is a deeply individualizing act. Our parents…
In his book, Erotic Faith , Robert M. Polhemus offers an intriguing analysis of Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid . The allegory suggests that “worship of Venus . . . blinds one to the menace of time and death.” Seeking sexual fulfillment means “betraying self, God, and humankind as…
In his classic study of romanticism and literary theory, The Mirror and the Lamp , MH Abrams points out the crucial change in images of the mind - from the mind as a “mirror” of outside reality to the mind as a “lamp” or a “fountain” that determines what it…
Hannah Arendt claimed that “An object is cultural depending on the duration of its permanence: its durable character is opposed to its functional aspect, that aspect which would make it disappear from the phenomenal world through use and wear and tear . . . . Culture finds itself under threat…
At the climactic moment of reversal in the court scene in Merchant of Venice , Portia tells Shylock: “This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.” “Jot” comes to English through the Greek iota , which is linked to the Hebrew YOD through Jesus’ usage in Matthew 5.…
spectral rime-frosted trees in early morning moonlight cast shadows on the pasture
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