Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Gambling The Bible nowhere condemns gambling, and so we need to be careful in our assessment of it. Let me begin by making a strong case against gambling. Then I will surprise most readers by pointing out that gambling may not always be sinful. The reader should bear in mind…
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991). Reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Michael Crawford, a…
A close supporter of Biblical Horizons asks whether it is proper and wise to get involved in all the boycotts that Christians are being asked to observe today. She raises the point that Paul’s advice about eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to the discussion. I think she is…
Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in the fourth year of his reign, which was 480 years after Israel came out of Egypt, the year A.M. 2993 (1 Kings 6:1). Seven years later, in the year A.M. 3000, the Temple building was finished (1 Kings 6:38). The…
Several months back, a candidate for ordination was being examined for entrance into the Presbytery of which I am a member. The candidate had a good deal of trouble with the exam on the sacraments, stumbling badly as he tried to define the "nature of the sacrament." Apparently in an…
Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book, The Struggle for America’s Soul , Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow presents a typical, though hypothetical, case study: Mabel Miller. Mabel lives alone, thousands of miles from her family. She grew up in a Baptist Church, but now, approaching 65,…
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Responding to my earlier post on memory, Wes Callihan writes: “We can’t always go back to the physical surroundings; that’s the problem. We can, however, go back in our imaginations and it seems that that was what the classical art of memory (the ‘palace of memory’) was all about. A…
INTRODUCTION Nowhere in the Bible do we find as many references to demons as in the gospels. When Jesus arrives, Satan begins an all-out assault, and this provokes the great conflict at the center of history: Satan and his demons against the Spirit-filled son of David. THE TEXT “Then one…
Matthew 12:8: For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is an institution, a rule, a commandment, a marker of time, a social practice that distinguishes Jews from Gentiles. It is also a basic structure of human history. The creation week begins with the creation of…
Jesus knows how to confront. He issues a series of eight woes against the Pharisees and scribes, and they are very severe. When He is challenged, He often raises the stakes instead of qualifying himself. He knows what it’s like to attack and not back down. In our sermon text,…
Stephen Kern suggestively notes that Bergson, Proust, and Freud, who all “insisted that the past was an essential source of the full life,” had Jewish backgrounds, and he doesn’t think this an accident: “Both Judaism and Christianity share a reverence for the past and argue their validity partly from tradition.…
I rush out of my library, resolutely intending to tell something to my wife in the next room. When I get there, my intention is gone. I go back to the library, and find the memory of what I wanted to say, undulating lightly in the air. Augustine wanted to…
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