Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Evangelistic Message to the Uninformed: 1 Timothy 3.14-16 Even though this is written as a sermon for delivery, and even though it was preached in a homiletics class, I decided I can’t post it as a sermon because it was not truly preached at a place where nonchristians wanted to…
If we only read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we might get the impression that Jesus’ ascension was on resurrection Sunday. Matthew speaks of going to Galilee but he does not put things into a clear time frame. John shows us that Jesus appeared to the disciples eight days…
The most cursory glance at the history of Western literature reveals that it has been deeply influenced by the Bible. Some of the greatest classics of Western literature draw their plots, characters, and ideas largely from Scripture; Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two of the most notable…
Few themes emerge as profoundly and persistently in the streams of biblical narrative as the conflict between light and darkness, and the juxtaposition of humanity with monstrosity. These themes not only weave through the fabric of Scripture, emerging in stories from Genesis to Revelation, but also stitch together the human…
In John Wenham’s work, Easter Enigma , he devotes an entire chapter to Mary Magdalene, which is rephrased and summarized here. 1 One of the interesting things that Wenham said was that Mary Magdalene was the second “most favored woman in the Bible.” 2 He adds, “Yet apart from a…
God made man to live in a larger relational context, and even in high rebellion, man cannot escape his created nature. Instead, that nature takes revenge on rebellious man. Autonomous and alone, the self craves absolution but recognizes no authority that might give it; it thirsts for glory but rejects…
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Verse 8 returns to some of the concerns of verse 1. Evil men meditate on violence (v. 1), and they also calculate, plot, and deliberately work out how to do evil (v. 8). This, again, is not simple foolishness or naïvete. This is deliberate, planned evil. In some passages the…
Barth insists that the center of the New Testament is Jesus, and that without Him there is nothing to be said. The list found in 1 Corinthians 1:30 - wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption - “become a meaningless statement in spite of the high content of its predicates” without Jesus. For…
Not according to Barth ( CD 1.2) Anselm does not move from the possibility of incarnation to its reality, but instead throughout his argument assumes the reality he’s attempting to understand: “his method cannot be called rationalistic, because of all the decisive elements by which he proves that the incarnation…
INTRODUCTION Back in 22:20, Solomon writes that he has written “excellent things” to his son. Waltke, following other commentators, suggests that the word for “excellent” is better understood as a number, thirty. Thus, Solomon asks rhetorically, “Have I not written to you thirty sayings?” Those thirty sayings are contained in…
Jones again, commenting on the different treatment of Jews and Christians by the Roman government: “The Jews were a race who practised the traditional worship of their ancestors, and had at an early date, while still a political unit, obtained from Rome legal recognition of their peculiar practices. With their…
A.H.M. Jones notes that most of the considerable religious fervor of the third and fourth centuries was devoted to other-worldly, escapist religion. That makes the triumphalism of Constantine’s Christian faith all the most striking. Constantine regularly expresses the belief that service to the Supreme God, the Christian God, will guarantee…
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