Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christians get sex wrong when we start from the wrong end. We start from human desires, passions, biological drives and “needs.” These are treated as givens, as the base-line natural reality of human sexuality. Then we come to the Bible and find, to our surprise, that God places all kinds…
Why isn't Proverbs better known as the Bible's book on "manliness"? I use quotation marks because the term almost seems archaic in our present culture, along with "manhood." Perhaps the Church is too embarrassed to admit the Bible addresses that much attention to the topic. But another reason can be…
In certain evangelical Christian churches it is the tradition to exalt preaching above the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Ever since the rise of Revivalist preachers pushing for conversions, the practice has cast doubt upon the possibility of Baptism or the Lord’s Supper being a “means of grace”…
Perhaps one of the most stimulating sections of Yoram Hazony’s The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture addresses the question of how we are to discern the meaning of biblical narratives, especially how biblical narratives might present arguments of a more general nature. Hazony quotes John Barton’s remarks about the difficulty of…
In this slender volume, Joseph Minich (Ph.D. student at the University of Dallas) attempts to answer some of the deepest questions of human existence. With his honesty, his probing questioning, his wide reading, and his ability to plunge beneath superficial answers, he provides a helpful source of reflection for fellow…
A Closer Look at Noah’s Post-Flood Humiliation In Genesis 9:20-27 My wife is currently leading a Bible study through Genesis for a group of insatiable Bible students. Because she is a deep thinker and has a high view of inspiration, there is no passage she is unwilling to face head…
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Ian Hunter ( Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany ) notes that Kant’s “philosophical biblical hermeneutics” is “the intellectual method or spiritual exercise through which his rational theology performs the core task of university metaphysics.” Hunter elaborates that this task is “reconciling moral philosophy and revealed…
Among the many delightful character sketches in Paul Hazard’s The European Mind, 1680-1715 is this Chestertonian riff on John Toland (notorious author of Christianity not mysterious ): “He had taken his M. A. at Glasgow; he had studied at Edinburgh, Leyden and Oxford. He had delved into ancient history, only…
Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth offered a novel defense of the doctrine of the Trinity, under assault during the seventeenth century. He thought those who attacked the doctrine and those who defended were both wrong to treat it as a “revealed mystery.” Cudworth thought it was a piece of natural theology.…
Peter Harrison ( ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment ) argues that there was an epochal change in the understanding of Christianity during the seventeenth century. Over the protests of such puritans as Robert Harris and Richard Baxter, who argued for what Harris called “true religion in the…
INTRODUCTION Even after Jesus has fed 4000 men, along with women and children ( 15:32 -39), the Pharisees and Sadducees aren’t satisfied. They want a “sign from heaven” (16:1). The disciples don’t understand either, and Jesus has to remind them of His power to give bread (16:8-11). THE TEXT “Then…
Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is full of intriguing information and innovative arguments. At least the arguments look innovative in the context of contemporary NT scholarship. In any other context, they look like common sense. Like this: “We [NT scholars] have become accustomed to working with models of oral…
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