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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Thomas writes in his commentary on John that “things were written in the Old Testament because they would be fulfilled by Christ. If we say that Christ acted because the scriptures foretold it, it would follow that the New Testament existed for the sake of the Old Testament and for…
Matthew Levering wisely rejects von Balthasar’s notion that Ezra-Nehemiah is “like a brook in the process of drying up”: “Why should the rebuilding of the temple and the renewal of obedience to the Torah, despite the diminishment of the splendor of the temple and the continuing failure fully to observe…
In a review of George Steiner’s latest book in the May 2 TLS, David Martin speculates on the connection between biblical exegesis and the development of intellectual toughness. For Jews and Scots, he says, “there are the intellectual resources built up by strenuous exercises, in wresting sense from sometimes recalcitrant…
Music is often considered the most mystical, ephemeral, ethereal of all arts. For some, music is for this reason the most perfect, the most purely artistic, of all arts. Maybe. But think: When Bach wants to “comment” (Calvin Stapert’s term) on the chorale “Wachet auf” in Cantata 140, he gives…
The distribution of angelic appearances in Matthew is significant. Angels actually appear as characters in the story only in chapters 1-4 and 28. In total, there are seven uses of “angel” in passages that describe angels as characters (1:20, 24; 2:13, 19; 4:11; 28:2, 5; there is also Satan’s quotation…
When the fisherman in the dragnet parable (Matthew 13:47-50) pull the net to the beach, they “sat down” in order to gather the good fish and throw the bad away. Why sit? Comfort? I doubt it. Jesus is talking about the end of the age, when the Twelve, made fishers…
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