Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Summary In what follows, I will consider the “year-stamps” employed in Scripture, i.e., statements of the form, “Such-and-such an event took place in the Xth year of Y.” In the process, I will suggest some ways in which the Biblical narrative might relate to events in the extra-Biblical world, though…
In the first essay on the parable of the Prodigal Son, I suggested that the problems commentators and others encounter in interpreting Jesus three-part parable are not accidental. These are not just problems in our ignorance of cultural background. They are intentional features of the stories —stories designed to poke…
The story of the Prodigal Son is perhaps the most well-known story in the Bible. As others have observed, it may also be one of the most misunderstood. In two short essays, I will point out features of this story that are commonly neglected, aspects of Jesus’ parable that might…
The parable of Lazarus and the nameless rich man is not an independent story. It is part of a long context that begins in Luke 15:1, where Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners and the scribes and Pharisees grumble. In response to their hardheartedness, Jesus tells a three-part…
The Bible is written so that even when a reader cannot pick up on what might be deeper or more detailed aspects of a text, there is virtually always a message to be heard. In the ancient world, where the “reader” of Scripture would likely be a church official facing…
The distinction between garden (or vineyard) and field begins in Genesis 2. This relates to the ordering of the formless world. Plants of the field are contrasted with the garden planted by God in Genesis 2:5&8. Later on, under the Old Covenant the Israelites will be required to keep their…
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Peter Berger recently analyzed the state of the Anglican communion in The American Interest . The missionaries who were sent to Africa brought a gospel and Victorian morality. They succeeded in converting many in Africa to Christianity, and these converts conformed their lives to the morals the missionaries taught. Now…
Pericles is a drama of grief, loss, despair, ultimately a drama of joy, recovery and hope. At critical junctures in the play, music and story-telling play a redemptive role. Pericles uses music as a metaphor for love, licit and illicit, in the first scene of the play. When he discovers…
A friend pointed me to this remarkable statement from Augustine's de doctrina Christiana . Augustine is distinguishing between uti and frui , use and enjoyment, emphasizing that the only thing that can be enjoyed in itself, rather than for the sake of something else, is God. He elaborates with a…
Matthew Avery Sutton's American Apocalypse tells the story of American Evangelicalism by telling the story of premillennial apocalyptic eschatology. The approach throws some fresh light on recent history. For example, he links premillennialism to the crusading of the Moral Majority: “As humankind approached the last days, the faithful believed that…
Joshua Kurlantzick defines State Capitalism as “countries whose government has a controlling ownership stake in more than one-third of the 500 largest companies, by revenue, in that country, a situation that gives these governments far greater control over the corporate sector than a government in a more free-market oriented nation…
My daughter MargaretAnn wrote a paper for school on angels in the book of Psalms. She observed that angels do what men do. Angels are fierce warriors (Psalm 78:49), obey God (Psalm 103:20), praise God (Psalm 148:2). This is a summary of what human beings are called to do. The…
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