Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
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When Jesus instituted the Supper, He told His disciples to continue to ?do this?Eas a memorial of Him. The ?this?Eis not only the eating and drinking, but the whole ritual, which includes the moment when the bread is broken. In making this part of the rite, Jesus was linking the…
Our confession that we believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, is foundational to everything in Christian faith, but it is a serious error to limit God?s creativity to the original act of creation. Such a view is implicitly Deist: Deists think that God created the…
Obsession with sacraments and liturgy seems ?catholic?Eto many in our day, but it will not be news to anyone who has read and absorbed Schaff ?s Principle of Protestantism that these concerns were near the heart of the Reformation. Over a century ago, Schaff had grasped that the Reformation was…
David Noel Freedman ‘s book, The Unity of the Hebrew Bible contains a number of fascinating and compelling suggestions about the structure of the OT. 1) He suggests that the Hebrew Bible can be neatly divided into 4 sections of almost equal length: Torah, 5 books, 80,000 words Former prophets,…
NT Wright gives a characteristically stimulating overview of Rom 5-8 as a retelling of the exodus narrative. Here are some of the key elements of his interpretation: 1) He begins with the observation that Rom 8 describes the church’s future inheritance of the cosmos. The cosmos will be transformed at…
As many commentators have suggested (Douglas Moo most clearly), there is an inclusio around Romans 5-8 that shows it is a distinct unit. Below are some of the key words shared between 5:1-11 and 8:14-39, with some comments: 1) DIKAIOO: “justify”: 5:1, 9; 6:7; 8:30, 33: This verb, prominent in…
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