Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
During one of my AAPC lectures I read a portion of Richard Mitchell’s provocative little book The Underground Grammarian . Here’s the portion I read: The mind is a rudderless wanderer blown here or there by any puff of breeze. If I mention watermelons, you must think of watermelons; if…
This is the donation thank-you essay for January 2008. Our studies in the Psalms go out month by month in response to donations. I’m putting this one up here as an example, and also because the version I actually mailed out contained several egregious arithmetical errors! So, here is the…
Part 1: Introduction The collapse of the Western tradition in the United States, seen in the hostility to Christianity in government and education, and the elimination of “traditional” or “canon” learning from our institutions of middle and higher learning, provides a crisis and an opportunity for serious believers at the…
While “forgiving oneself” is widely accepted in the secular world as a legitimate and needful thing to do, Christians are rightly suspicious. After all, God is the one who forgives. When we sin against other people, we need to seek their forgiveness, not our own. Nevertheless after looking at Vine’s…
This was originally published as HIStory in the column, “A Pastor’s Perspective” in Ligonier Ministrie’s Tabletalk Magazine . I am not sure of the date but it was probably published in 1999 or 2000. Quick! What’s the basic message of the Bible? Summarize it in as few words as possible…
A Brief Explanation of What a Presbytery Is & Why Pastors in Presbyterian Denominations are Members of Them A belief in the primacy of the local congregation of the Church, I think, reflects the gut feeling of most North American Evangelicals. As a result, the form of Church government universally…
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At the chiastic center of John 9, the Jews interrogate the blind man’s parents, threatening them with expulsion from the synagogue if they confess Jesus. Why do the parents appear? The answer goes back to the disciples’ question at the beginning of the chapter: Jesus says the parents have not…
Several of my students have pointed to the link between John 8 and 9. Jesus declares that He is the light of the world in 8:12, but because of the opposition of the Jews and their intent to kill Him, He withdraws and hides Himself - He hides the light…
Several of my students in a Shakespeare elective have pointed to the way Shakespeare’s use of disguise and deception in comedy plays into his evangelical “lose life to find it” theme. Characters become more fully themselves by quite literally becoming other than themselves. Viola becomes Cesario, but through that otherness…
In a paper on the chiastic structure of Midsummer Night’s Dream , a student, Jason Helsel, suggests that two scenes with the mechanicals “serve as a link or portal between the city and the forest.” Nicely put; the path from the city of law and justice to the magical world…
Jesus describes a violent and tumultuous mission (Matthew 10). They Twelve will display great power, and arouse vicious opposition. They will advance the kingdom, but the violent will try to arrest the kingdom by force, by crosses and killings and exclusions. But the last words of this discourse give us…
For Jesus’ first-century disciples, estrangement from family members was a personal and social disaster. They lost their identity, their network of business and personal connections, their social and economic safety net, their prospects for future inheritance. Jesus encouraged His disciples by promising that they would receive far more than they…
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