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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While mourning, Israelites would put ashes and dust on their heads. Why? Yahweh told Adam and Eve that they would die, returning to the dust: From dust you were taken, to dust you shall return. Abram prayed to Yahweh saying that he was nothing but dust and ashes, acknowledging that…
Gibbon captures the pervasive character of idolatry in Roman society and culture in a passage from the Decline and Fall : “it was the first but arduous duty of a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the practice of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely…
A 2007 article from Church History examines the role of fasting in French Reformed piety, and concludes with this: “Why did the fast acquire this remarkable status and power in the Reformed world, particularly in France? The response, in part, relates to Reformed Protestants’ deep reverence for Scripture and its…
In his recent book Travelling Heroes, Robin Lane Fox examines Greek travel in the eighth century BC, focusing on the Euobean Greeks who traded and settled throughout the Mediterranean. Fox argues, in the summary of Edith Hall, the TLS reviwer , that “these electrying Euobeans can explain much of the…
Some reflections in spired by a paper on the biblical theology of the city by a student, Lisa Beyeler. 1) Genesis 1-11 is often treated as a “prologue” to Israel’s history, but that tends to detach it as “natural history” as opposed to “redemptive history.” It is a preparation for…
The following is a Christological speculation, not a Christological affirmation. My student, Brad Littlejohn, has suggested, based on a study of the theology of “life” in the gospel, that the divine-human relation in Christ changes after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The humanity participates in God’s life from the…
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