Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I was still a high school student the first time I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I will never forget the powerful impact the book had on me. Of course, as a second year student, I did not fully digest the book. In spite of subsequent readings, I…
Crises force questions of identity. Identities may remain assumed until some event, or series of events, challenge what may have been taken for granted. The search for identity is an anxious one precisely because it tends to happen in times of upheaval and uncertainty. In his recent book, Orthoxox Anglican…
Peter Leithart recently wrote a fascinating short piece about the Half Shekel Temple Tax as an atonement. Leithart argues three main points. First that the Sanctuary Shekel was heavier, i.e., more valuable than the everyday shekel. Second, he offers some analysis about the order of magnitude of the purchasing power…
There is no denial from the careful reader that 1 Samuel 24 and 26 are telling the same story. Perhaps we should say, virtually the same story. But that the stories are cut from the same cloth is undeniable. What we have over these three chapters—1 Samuel 24-26—is a very…
In his novel That Hideous Strength , C.S. Lewis is able to masterfully illustrate in narrative form so many of his insights about the subversive dangers of Leftist political dogma to Christian civilization. Perceptive essays from Lewis like “The Abolition of Man” and “The Inner Ring” are fleshed out in…
At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city, whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the…
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Forty days after Jesus rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven to take His place at the right hand of the Father (Acts 1:3), fulfilling the promise of Psalm 110. The Psalm is patterned as three sets of seven clauses. Verses 1-2 make up the first sequence, verses 3-4…
In his 2007 encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi , Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI observes that the experience of loving and being loved is a moment of “redemption.” Love gives new meaning, new joy, new energy. Every love is a new birth. We long and hope for love. We want it…
Oliver O’Donovan ( Ways of Judgment , 26-7) cites Hegel’s claim that every wrong is “infinite” and so “demands infinite judgment.” He takes this to mean that “the victim demands that the wrong should become the whole business of the universe.” The victim thinks he can “command the world” if…
Moses informs the congregation of Israel about what’s needed for the tabernacle (Exodus 35:4-19), and the congregation goes off to finds things to contribute (Exodus 35:20). Yahweh speaks to Moses, and Moses acts, bringing the word of Yahweh to fulfillment. Now Moses speaks the word of Yahweh to the people,…
When Moses demands that Pharaoh let Yahweh’s people go into the wilderness to celebrate a feast, Pharaoh calls for his magicians, sorcery, and wise men (7:11; wise men is chakamiym ). Moses defeats those wise men, and the motif of wisdom goes subterranean for twenty-odd chapters. When it re-emerges, the…
An Easter homily from 2009 . Why do you seek the living among the dead? That was the angel’s question to the women who came to the tomb on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead of finding Jesus, they found an empty tomb with the stone rolled away. Confused and…
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