Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John the Baptist says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (Mt. 3:11).” Much debate surrounds the nature of this statement and what exactly it prophesies. Sacramental, baptistic, and charismatic Christians…
First Corinthians is not considered one of the Pastoral Epistles, but there is much to learn from Paul about pastoring a congregation by the way he writes to the Corinthians. Briefly, 1 Corinthians is an exposition of the cross and resurrection. In the first fourteen chapters, Paul gives an exposition…
Fredrik Hagglund ( Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming After Exile (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament) ) argues against the common notion that Isaiah 53 is about the atoning suffering of Yahweh’s Servant. The Servant’s suffering is vicarious (i.e., he suffers for the sins of others) but it is not…
With the inheritance of Canaan and the dividing up of this priestly territory among the tribes, Israel became a microcosm of the nations of the world. This division between Israel and the nations as a substitutionary “land and sea” would prevent another global rebellion, and thus another global judgment. ((For…
One of the more revealing aspects of Paul and James’ soteriology is the different ways they both use Genesis 15:6 (“And Abraham believed God and it was counted for him as righteousness,”) as a proof text to defend their comments about the gospel. The key observation to make is that…
The disintegration of the EU is not the end of the world. It is a sign that the end of the world is anything but nigh. Western culture as we know it is dying at the hands of usurpers, traitors and prodigals. Even the worst rulers throughout Christian history at…
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Archaeologists once discovered a small fragment of Greek text in the Egyptian desert. The name “Paul” appeared at the beginning of the text, and one of the words contained what looked like the first letters of the word “apostle.” Otherwise, the text did not conform to any known texts from…
Gadamer points out that the Enlightenment operated on “an unshakable premise: the scheme of the conquest of mythos by logos.” For the Enlightenment, this represented a progress. Romanticism assumed the same development, but considered it a tragic lost. Romantics found “that olden times - the world of myth, unreflective life,…
Eugene Peterson writes that the Sabbath “erects a weekly bastion against the commodification of time, against reducing time to money, reducing time to what we can get out of it, against leaving no time for God or beauty or anything that cannot be used or purchased. It is a defense…
In an essay on M. H. Abrams’s Natural Supernaturalism , Wayne Booth praises the style of the book, but more: “I must emphasize that I am not simply praising Abrams’ style. i am making what I take to be a much more risky claim: that a style that is good…
Gracia argues: “Consider a text of a message sent by a particular historical figure to another, and which is being examined by a historian. The historian wishes to determine exactly what the person who sent the message meant, and what the person who received the message understood by it, so…
Gracia nicely illustrates how meaning can go beyond authorial intention with a reference to games: “one of the plays makes a move the significance of which he does not quite grasp. For the player is the author of the move, and wins or loses accordingly, by virtue of the fact…
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