Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
(continued from previous issue) Between 30 and 50 What did the Levites do between age 30 and 50? Numbers 4 shows us that they carried the house of God on their shoulders. Lifting up the Lord is an image of worship in the Bible, and David’s restructuring of the Levites…
When God created the world, He created two lands: the Throne-land of Eden (entered through the sanctuary-garden, the Garden of Eden), and the Outlying Lands, such as the lands of Havilah and Cush. This essentially bi-polar world is the world of the Old Creation, and it continued to exist until…
Color is inescapable, except for those who are color blind. In our church architecture, we either employ color schemes that are helpful to worship, or we employ color schemes that are not helpful. Of course, this assertion merely begs the question: What color schemes are most helpful. God showed interest…
As I noted in an earlier article in Rite Reasons , the Church Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine all claimed that baptism inducts the baptized person into membership in the royal priesthood of the church, and Thomas Aquinas said that baptism, by imprinting an indelible “character” on the soul, confers…
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…
In my Preliminary Commentary on Daniel , which many of you have obtained, I argued in chapter 13 that the four monsters called up from the sea by the evangelistic work of the four winds (the saints) represented the deep hatred of God that evangelistic work brings to the fore…
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Feminists, rightly, attack the nymphet/Lolita treatment of incest, in which middle-aged father figures are victimized by precociously sexualized teens or pre-teens, as well as by their bitchy, frigid wives. This is the initial setup for the film American Beauty , though in the end the father figure refuses to consummate…
Leavings from a paper on Leviticus 18. Leviticus 18 is a chiastic structure consisting of smaller chiasms. 18:1 is an introductory formula, announcing the beginning of a new section of Leviticus. Verses 2-5 form the first section of the chapter, which repeats “I am Yahweh” three times and also contains…
From the introduction to Ellen Pollak’s Incest and the English Novel, 1684-1814 : According to Derrida, the prohibition against incest is “the unstable center of structuralist thought.” But in Derrida’s hands, it becomes “the condition of the possibility of meaning.” As Pollak explains it, Derrida’s “sexual fable of the production…
In her study of Incest and the Medieval Imagination , Elizabeth Archibald notes that medieval clerical writers were far more open about incest and incestuous desire than moderns have been until very recently: “On might have expected that the medieval church would have avoided telling stories about incest for fear…
At the end of 2 Corinthians 6, Paul quotes a series of Old Testament texts in support of his exhortation, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers.” God’s temple has no agreement with idols, and the Christian and the church are temples (v. 16). The church fulfills Yahweh’s promise to…
Hosea’s daughter is named Lo-ruhamah (1:6), and the Lord explains that her name signifies that He “will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel.” Lo-ruhamah means “no compassion.” But the word ruhamah is linked to the Hebrew word for “womb”; as many have pointed out, Yahweh’s compassion is…
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