Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The idea of atonement is not a distinctly Christian, or even Hebraic, concept. It also makes an appearance in ancient Greek thought (among other places). The Greek tradition is by no means monolithic, so it isn’t possible to speak of a “Greek” concept of atonement. But there are certain commonalities…
As we know, there are seven deadly or capital sins. Prior to the list of the seven deadly sins there was a list of eight evil thoughts or demons. It was made by an Eastern monk, Evagrius Ponticus. When the list was transposed to the West, one evil thought was…
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is one of those epistles in Scripture to which pastors and teachers resort to show the church everything that it shouldn’t be . There is, of course, good reason for this. The Corinthian church was filled with all sorts of problems. Personality cults (i.e., factions),…
Today is Ash Wednesday , and as many Christians of the Protestant formerly "low church" persuasion are reacquiring some of the good and ancient practices of the church, one question in particular comes to the front: to ash or not to ash? That is, while many of us are finding…
A murder of tweets. To observe Lent rightly, we have to be persuaded that we already stand in God’s favor. Ash Wednesday reminds us to number our days. It helps us gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). We keep Easter to manifest and deepen our prior share in resurrection.…
Dale C. Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). Dale Allison 1993 book is a superb case study in the New Testament's use of the Old. Though he focuses on only a single typology (Christ as a new Moses) in only a single gospel (Matthew), Allison's…
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The “new atheism” has given atheists in America a new lease on life, but there have been comparatively few studies of atheist beliefs, backgrounds, and experiences. Melanie Brewster’s compilation, Atheists in America , tries to fill that gap by presenting “voices of atheist individuals who represent a diverse array of…
At the New Republic , Anne Applebaum tries to pinpoint the genre of Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices . Too superficial and sentimental to be a policy book, to guarded to be a memoir, too cliched to give insight into people or events, the book is best read, Applebaum argues, as…
Ancient Athens and the Renaissance are today seen as the two great peaks of Western Civilization. Renaissance thinkers would not have seen things that way. Obsessed with sources as they were, they wanted to push behind Rome to Greece and from Greece to Egypt. Those who were seeking an alternative…
After wonderful books on Bach, Handel, and the early Christian understanding of music, Calvin Stapert had added a volume on what he calls “music’s wittiest composer,” a composer full of surprises, Joseph Haydn ( Playing Before the Lord ). The book is organized biographically, and the account of his life…
As Joseph turns Egypt into a vast grain story, it’s said that he “stored grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring, for it was beyond measure” (Genesis 41:49). That “sand of the sea” reminds us of promises made to the patriarchs about the…
In the fourth century BC, the Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera offered this account of ancient Egyptian history (quoted in Bernal, Black Athena , 1.109): “The natives of the land surmised that unless they removed the foreigners their troubles would never be resolved. At once, therefore, the aliens were driven…
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