Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
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David S. Cunningham’s book Faithful Persuasion is a defense of doing theology in a rhetorical mode. Among other things, he offers a devastating deconstruction of an argument for the historical critical method of exegesis. First, he quotes Benjamin Jowett: It may be laid down that Scripture has one meaning —…
There’s a nice twist in Luke 8:39 that indicates how Luke understands Jesus’ relationship to God. Jesus tells the Gadarene demoniac to “return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.” The healed demoniac “went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus…
In Luke 5 and 8, two stories are told that may shed some interesting light on the question of justification. In 5:17-26, men lower a man on a bed through the roof of a house so that Jesus can heal him. Verse 20 says “seeing their faith, Jesus said, ‘Man,…
Another thought from Luke, this time chapter 3. The genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 contains 77 names. Several commentators suggest that the names are arranged in 11 groups of 7, and that there is a pattern of 7s (groups of 2 and 3 7s) that provides an overview of…
In Simeon’s song in Luke 2, he says that Jesus will cause the “fall and rising” of many in Israel. “Rising” translates ” anastasis ,” the word for resurrection. That may help to explain the sequence (fall—rise, rather than rise—fall). Simeon is perhaps not talking only about people being cast…
The exhortation from August 17, 2003: Ancient heretics tried to deny it, and modern heretics do the same, but Luke could hardly make it clearer that Jesus is the human God. Throughout the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, Luke uses the word “Lord” to describe the God of Israel. Gabriel…
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