Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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What is conversion? There are different answers, argued Jerald Brauer in a 1978 essay on conversion in the Journal of Religion . He contrasts Puritan notions of conversion with those of later revivalist. Over several centuries, conversion was converted from a more corporate change to an individual experience, and from…
In a 2004 essay on global history, the late C.A. Bayly challenged the “fashionable emphasis on the wholly destructive effects of Western ‘colonialism.' Famine, the disruption of local communities, the exacerbation of religious and racial tensions: these are all attributed to the Western impact as vigorously by contemporary cultural critics…
One of the lesser-known movements discussed by Louis Newman in his Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements is the twelfth-century heresy initiated by Peter of Bruys and known as the Petrobrussian heresy. The Petrobrussians were similar to earlier and later movements in their rejection of infant baptism, their renunciation of…
“Put me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm,” says the Bride in the Song of Songs (8:6). Seals mark something with the name of the owner. A letter is sealed as proof of its author (1 Kings 21:8). The high priest's golden plate is…
Paul Avis wrote Becoming a Bishop as a theological handbook for bishops, but much of the book has a wider application to all church leaders. His advice about handling conflicts in the church is judicious. His “first and most basic” piece of advice is “Don't be afraid.” Fear can appear…
According to J. Stuart Russell ( The Parousia , 503), the Jewish War of the late 60s AD involved more than Palestine. Slaughter encompassed the empire, wherever Jews were: “Tacitus speaks of the bitter animosity with which the Arab auxiliaries of Titus were filled against the Jews, and we have…
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