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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A friend and former student, Aaron Cummings, writes: “If Ruth is ‘adopted’ as a daughter to Boaz, then her story becomes the reversal of the original story of Moab (Gen. 19). Lot’s younger daughter successfully seduced her father while he slept, and she conceived Moab. Ruth, Elimelech’s younger daughter in…
A class discussion of Proverbs brought out some interesting points. Proverbs 11:18 says that whoever sows righteousness will receive a sure reward. The verb “sow” is zr’ , the verbal form of “seed.” Righteousness is a seed sown, and the metaphor implies that righteousness is potent. What a seed produces…
James Jordan points out that Boaz “adopts” Ruth into his household when he first meets her. The use of the Hebrew na’ar hints at this. Boaz speaks to his na’ar when he first arrives on the scene (2:5), and invites Ruth to drink water along with his na’arim (2:9). In…
Boaz calls Ruth “my daughter” (2:8), as does Naomi. This indicates the age difference between them, but also points in a typological direction. After all, Boaz marries his “daughter,” just as Yahweh is both Father and Husband to “Daughter Zion.”
Garber notes that Jaques’s “seven ages” speech numerically links the ages of man with “the number of the planets, and the virtues and vices, and the liberal arts.” Specifically the planets: “the schoolboy is mercurial; the lover, venereal; the soldier, martial; the justice, jovial; the old man, saturnine.”
Pastoral was a huge fad in Elizabethan England. Marlowe’s brief song of the shepherd exemplifies the conventions of the genre: Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit…
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