Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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Yahweh’s name is His name is supposed to be continuously ( tamid ) praised, but it is blasphemed (or “provoked”) continuously ( tamid ; Isaiah 52:5). Yahweh continues: “Therefore My people shall know My name” (v. 6). How “therefore”? How will Israel know Yahweh’s blasphemed name? The answer is found…
Yahweh calls Zion to shake off her dust (Isaiah 52:2). Dust is the place of mourning; Zion sits in dust and ashes. Adam was made from dust, and in death returned to dust; dust is the grave, and Zion is a new Eve, called out of the grave to rise…
Yahweh calls Zion from her sleep and excitedly orders her to get dressed (Isaiah 52:1). Like the call to “Awake! Awake!” the order to put on clothes is doubled: Clothe yourself with strength, Zion. Clothe yourself in garments of beauty, Jerusalem. Two observations: First, the call to be clothed in…
Arendt has some sharp observations on the dangers of bureaucratization in On Violence (81): “Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and here all are equally powerless we have a…
Is it fitting for Jesus, who died so ignominiously, to be buried in splendor? Thomas has various answers to that question ( ST III, 51, 2), but I think the best answers are inherent to the literary structure and themes of the gospel, especially John. Matthew tells us that Joseph…
The notion that death can be life-giving doesn’t appear to make philosophical sense, Thomas notes ( ST III, 50, 6). Death is a privation of life, and a privation doesn’t have power to act. Therefore, no death, including Christ’s, has power to give life. Thomas admits that Christ’s death (as…
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