Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready (Psalm 7.11, 12). David’s inspired lyrics do not sound very encouraging to modern ears–especially to modern Christian…
The story of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) is one of the best known and most loved of Jesus’ parables. I am not going to attempt to exegete the passage, as that has been done admirably and ably by others. Rather, I want to briefly examine what bearing the passage…
In Romans 2.6-16, Paul writes, He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there…
It was still dark as David approached the crest of the little ridge. The eastern horizon was not even gray. It was early. But he knew this trail well. Every morning before dawn and every evening before dark, he would walk down to the well and carry water back to…
The theme of Romans is the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:16-17). That is to say, Romans is something of a theodicy. Paul is defending God’s covenant faithfulness, particularly in light of Jewish unfaithfulness. How does it work? Without getting into exegetical details, we can still sketch out the big picture.…
The New Perspective on Paul (NPP) is a loosely defined movement held together primarily by a common understanding of Second Temple Judaism. All NPP theologians basically adhere, with varying degrees of intensity and consistency, to Ed Sanders’ claims with regard to the nature of pre-70 A.D. Judaism. Sanders has sought…
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CS Lewis says that language cannot do what music and gesture do, that is, “do more than one thing at once.” He admits that “the words in a great poet’s phrase interinanimate one another and strike the mind as a quasi-instantaneous chord, yet, strictly speaking, each word must be read…
INTRODUCTION At the middle of Matthew’s story of Jesus, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ ( 16:16 ). But he doesn’t yet understand what that means. He still has to learn that being Christ means taking up a cross and losing life to find it. THE TEXT “When Jesus…
Matthew uses the word “sign” in only four contexts. In the closely parallel passages 12:38-45 and 16:1-4, the Jewish leaders ask Jesus for a sign; the word is used several times in chapter 24, and a last time in 26:48 to describe Judas’s kiss. Chapters 12 and 16 are obviously…
Yahweh rained bread from heaven to test Israel, to see if they would follow His instructions (Exodus 16:4). They didn’t follow Him. Instead, they disobeyed the instructions about manna (16:13-21) and turned the tables to put God to the test (17:2, 7). Jesus follows the same pattern. He is Bread…
The Pharisees and Sadducees ask Jesus for a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:1). The first “signs” in the heavens were the sun, moon, and stars. A sign from heaven is a sign of new creation, and Jesus’ response, alluding to the evening-morning pattern of the creation week, continues the creation…
The tide started turning against the etymologists during the Renaissance. In Praise of Folly , Erasmus mocked the theologians for their obsessions with the minutiae of words: “I met with another, some eighty years of age, and such a divine that you’d have sworn Scotus himself was revived in him.…
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