Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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According to Davies and Allison, Matthew organizes the incident at Nazareth as a chiasm: A. Jesus comes to his patris and teaches in the synagogue B. People are amazed C. Where did he get these powers? Don’t we know his family? B’. People are scandalized A’. Jesus speaks about His…
Matthew quotes Jesus in 13:52 saying that a scribe “discipled by the kingdom” brings out old and new treasures. Davies and Allison note that this has sometimes been taken as a play on the author’s name: “Matthew” puns with the Greek of “disciple” ( matheteutheis ). Davies and Allison dismiss…
Levine again: “Samuel P. Langley, who was eventually to become Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was the first to cash in on the growing demand for time coordination. In 1867, Langley took over the directorship of a struggling observatory in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and quickly developed its timekeeping capabilities. He then…
Levine writes, “The Chinese developed an incense clock. This wooden device consisted of a series of connect small same-sized boxes. Each box held a different fragrance of incense. By knowing the time it took for a box to burn its supply, and the order in which the scents burned, observers…
Robert Levine ( Geography of Time ) notes that “recent research indicates that farm wives in the 1920’s, who were without electricity, spend significantly less time at housework than did suburban women, with all their modern machinery, in the latter half of the century. One reason for this is that…
Why don’t longshoremen or sailors or assembly-line workers sing as they work? Blame it on the clock. Lewis Mumford wrote in the 1950s, “To keep time was once a peculiar attribute of music: it gave industrial value to the workshop song or the tattoo or the chantey of the sailors…
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