Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Blessing of the Father The narrative of the Exodus makes it clear that Yahweh is Israel’s Father. Moses is told to declare to Pharaoh that “Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’” (Exodus 4:22-23). In contrast to…
When reading the Old Testament, the believer faces two dilemmas. First, there is a seemingly sharp discontinuity between the universal proclamation of the gospel to the whole earth and God’s singling out of the nation of Israel. Second, the New Testament says of Jesus that “there is no other name…
John 17 contains the longest prayer that we have from Jesus, and it shows us the intimate relationship between the Father and the Son in a way that few passages do. The prayer lays out the chiastic pattern noted by Athanasius (God became man so that man could become God),…
The following meditation on the incarnation is paraphrased and quoted from Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation (Church Dogmatics, Vol. 4, Part 1) , pp. 185ff. In the incarnation, the eternal Son of God makes His way into a far country, and takes on the form of a servant. “But…
Peter says "baptism saves you" (1 Peter 3:21). Does the New Testament teach that "baptism justifies you"? I think the answer is Yes. That's a controversial answer, and demands some defense and explanation, but first some critical qualifications. No New Testament text states "baptism justifies you," so my argument will…
In his THI article “ Son of David, Son of Abraham ,” Peter Leithart notes that Matthew's genealogy “contains a summary of redemptive history.” This statement is only too true and one that deserves further elucidation. Biblos genese ō s. The first two words of Matthew's Gospel are usually translated…
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Mark Biddle of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond examines some of the intertextual connections between 1 Sam 25 and the Jacob narratives in Genesis ( JBL 121/4 [2002]). He discovers analogies between Nabal and Laban, Saul and Laban, and of course Nabal and Saul. Abigail is comparable to Rebekah…
Timothy Wengert’s article in the Lutherjahrbuch 66 (1999) offers an analysis of the controverted relationship between Luther and Melanchthon. Wengert puts aside psychological assessments of the relationship, and does not focus on theological similarities and differences, which might have the effect of reducing the two men to their ideas. Instead,…
In a 1989 article in the WTJ , Warren Gage, now of Knox Theological Seminary, explores the connections between the Gibeah incident recorded at the end of Judges and the story of Ruth. He argues that there are literary and thematic connections and contrasts between the two narratives. As usual,…
Edward Oakes offers a fascinating review of several new books on Shakespeare in the June/July issue of First Things . He gives this summary of the recent argument of Stephen Greenblatt concerning Shakespeare’s views on Purgatory: “Shakespeare’s choice of Wittenberg as the palce where Hamlet spent time as a student…
David Bentley Hart offers a lively and wide-ranging defense of censorship in an article in the current issue of First Things . He savages the standard arguments against censorship: the slippery-slope argument (Hart: “Apparently, as a society, we are poised precariously upon the narrowest precipice of a sheer escarpment as…
According to the NB column in the May 28 TLS , the first recorded example of a limerick meter and rhyme occurs in a 13th-century prayer: Si vitiorum meorum evacuatio Concupiscentiae et libidinis exterminatio, Caritatis et patientiae, Humilitatis et obedientiae, Omniumque virtutum augmentatio . As NB goes on to say,…
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