Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I'm afraid of messing up. Not just of messing up in general, but of messing this up—the big This that is the story that is my life, the story that God is attempting to tell with me as His material. The question casts its shadow over all my decisions. Can…
Jesus’ letter to Pergamum mentions Balaam and Balak (Revelation 2:14), and that is a signal that the whole message is running along the lines of Numbers 22-25. The death of the high priest is a sacrificial moment in the life of Israel. According to the rules of the cities of…
As you come to be joined in marriage today, I want to take a moment to focus on one important dimension of what it means to be married as Christians: that is as those who know Jesus and are being made into His likeness. This is a glorious day, full…
When Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.” Jesus saith unto him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest…
Philosophers have measured mountains, Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings, Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love. The Agonie –…
The third chapter of Luke famously opens with a list of mighty men, seven mighty men, potential heroes of the Mediterranean world. Beginning with Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate, passing on to Herod the Tetrarch and his brothers, and ending with two High Priests, Luke says that the word of…
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Philip Roth famously announced last year that he was quitting. Writing in the TLS , Adan Thirlwell suggests that what he’s actually doing is continuing his career in an inverted fashion. Thirlwell cites a 1984 interview with Hermione Lee, where Roth described his working method: “Making fake biography, false history,…
In an essay on Dostoevsky and evil in Between Religion and Rationality , Joseph Frank observes that Dostoevsky frequently leads readers into moral horrors, but his “unflinching explorations of evil” don’t leave readers paralyzed. How does that work? Frank traces Dostoevsky’s depiction of evil to his prison experience, recounted in…
In one of his late essays in Speech Genres , Bakhtin traces the secularization of literature to the solvent effects of irony: “Irony has penetrated all languages of modern times (especially French); it has penetrated into all words and forms . . . Irony is everywhere - from the minimal…
In a 1988 article in the Journal of Literature and Theology (2:1), Milbank sketches the contours of a “theology without substance.” Along the way, he offers a critique of Augustine’s signum-res distinction and the implied metaphysics. On the one hand, Augustine pours some of the foundations for a Christian linguistics…
Ronald Osborn’s Death Before the Fall is two books in one, as the subtitle suggests: “Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering.” Part of the book is a critique of “literalism,” especially as expressed in young-earth creationism, the other part is an exegetical defense of the notion that animal…
Jesus threatens to throw the self-appointed prophetess Jezebel onto a bed (Revelation 3:22). The threat carries multiple resonances. The original Jezebel died by being thrown from a window to the ground in front of conquering Jehu. Jesus is the new Jehu throwing Jezebel to her deathbed. It’s fitting that she’s…
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