Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The story of Judges 19 and the subsequent chapters are some of the most shocking and appalling accounts in all of Scripture. The callousness of the old host and the Levite, and the monstrous brutality of the men of Gibeah, leaves us feebly scrabbling for words by which to surmount…
David has become king. He has conquered the capital city of Jerusalem. He has brought the ark of Yahweh into the city and placed it in a tent. He has stationed Levites at the tent to offer sacrifices of praise. An anomaly hits him: He has a cedar-paneled palace, and…
In Part 2 of this series we traced what we have of the development of the epiclesis in the liturgy of the Church. In this third and final part we’ll look at the theological implications of this and how we may apply what we’ve learned. As we saw in Part…
In a 2014 piece published in First Things , I offered a "wish list" for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn't cover everything. It doesn't mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism and…
In the first part of this series we examined the meaning of “blessing” in Scripture and its parallels in Jewish liturgical tradition, but did not find anything that we could properly call an epiclesis (an invocation of the Holy Spirit). We did find examples of invocation of Jesus to “come”…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
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INTRODUCTION In Daniel 11, a Gentile ruler (Antiochus IV Epiphanes) allied with apostate Jews to defile the temple and persecute faithful Jews. The same thing happens in the first century A.D.: The sea beast ( Rome ) and the land beast (Judaism) band together to drink the blood of the…
Picking up on James Jordan’s treatment of this theme. In Matthew 24, Jesus speaks about a specific “abomination of desolation,” the one spoken of by Daniel. The passage He cites is from Daniel 11:31: “ For ships from Cyprus shall come against him; therefore he shall be grieved, and return…
INTRODUCTION The great signal that the city is about to fall is the “abomination of desolation,” prophesied by Daniel (v. 15). When that occurs, the “great tribulation” has come (v. 21). THE TEXT “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the…
Matthew 24:3: Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives , the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? The prophecy of Matthew 24-25 is frequently described…
For the next several weeks, I will be picking up where I left off in Matthew, in chapter 24, the “Olivet Discourse.” I will take the position that Jesus’ prophecy is not about the end of the world or His final coming, but about the destruction of the Old Covenant…
Scattered, inconclusive remarks on the prohibition of brother-sister incest in Leviticus 18 and 20. A number of the relations prohibited in these chatpers recall relationships that existed among the patriarchs. Leviticus 18:11 prohibits a man from taking his half-sister, the daughter of your father. That is exactly the relationship of…
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