Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
From time to time, when I’ve lectured on how to read the Bible, I’ve used art-music as one example thereof. When we listen to a simple folk song, we hear the same melody over and over again, but this is not how composers write "high" music. Let me amplify. A…
Sermons are rarely more tiresome than when they strive for relevance. Drawing from the latest headlines transforms the preacher into a one-man MacLaughlin Group, a Crossfire without the cross though perhaps with some of the fire, and leave the congregation thinking, "If I wanted Meet the Press, I could have…
Part One: The Old Testament “Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness, but the abuse of drink is from Satan, the wine is from God, but the drunkard is from the Devil” Increase Mather in Wo to Drunkards (1673). 1. The “wine”…
28. These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the 7th year 3023 Jews. 29. In the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem. 30. In the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4600…
Revelation 21:24 says, concerning the light shining from the New Jerusalem, "and the nations will walk by her light, and the kings of the land will bring their glory into her." Similarly, Revelation 22:2 says, concerning the Tree of Life, that "the leaves of the tree were for the healing…
Jeremiah and the Beginning of Jehoiakim’s Reign Now comes Jeremiah, at the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, with similar words (Jeremiah 26). Harken to God’s law, he said, or else God will destroy the Temple the same way He sent the Philistines to tear down the Tabernacle at Shiloh (Jeremiah 26:6;…
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I have described Descartes’s cogito as modernity’s founding ingratitude, the thought experiment that justified (doubtless against Descartes’s ultimate intentions) countless political, intellectual, and cultural erasures of the past. So also biblical criticism, though the ingratitude takes a specific form here. Insofar as biblical criticism arises from “inner light” sectarians (and…
Each is responsible for all, Dostoevsky says. He didn’t mean that no one was responsible. He meant that responsibility spreads far. In his intriguing Rosenstock-Huessy-inspired Power, Love, and Evil , Wayne Cristaudo illustrates Dostoevsky’s point with a review of the family history of Gary Gilmore. Extreme violence went back several…
John Nolland points out in his commentary on Matthew that the combination “evil and adulterous” is found in the LXX of Hosea 3:1, applied to Gomer. He suggests that by using this phrase, Jesus is echoing Hosea, and implicitly comparing the Jews to the generation of the exile. This makes…
I don’t want to over-dramatize, but I had a taste of the Bush police state this weekend. I crossed the line, and felt the force of the federal government bearing down on me. I tasted totalitarianism. I was dragged into The Castle, playing the role of K. The TSA tried…
Jesus rebukes the scribes and Pharisees for seeking signs, but He promises to give a sign, the sign of Jonah. Two observations: First: Signs are given; signs are gifts. Second, the first time we hear of “giving signs” in the Bible is Deuteronomy 13, which describes Israel’s proper response to…
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees as an “evil and adulterous generation” for demanding a sign. Israel is being conceived, clearly, as a faithless bride; and she is a faithless bride because, in the face of countless signs of Yahweh’s favor to Israel in Jesus, she is still searching for…
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