Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John the Baptist says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (Mt. 3:11).” Much debate surrounds the nature of this statement and what exactly it prophesies. Sacramental, baptistic, and charismatic Christians…
First Corinthians is not considered one of the Pastoral Epistles, but there is much to learn from Paul about pastoring a congregation by the way he writes to the Corinthians. Briefly, 1 Corinthians is an exposition of the cross and resurrection. In the first fourteen chapters, Paul gives an exposition…
Fredrik Hagglund ( Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming After Exile (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament) ) argues against the common notion that Isaiah 53 is about the atoning suffering of Yahweh’s Servant. The Servant’s suffering is vicarious (i.e., he suffers for the sins of others) but it is not…
With the inheritance of Canaan and the dividing up of this priestly territory among the tribes, Israel became a microcosm of the nations of the world. This division between Israel and the nations as a substitutionary “land and sea” would prevent another global rebellion, and thus another global judgment. ((For…
One of the more revealing aspects of Paul and James’ soteriology is the different ways they both use Genesis 15:6 (“And Abraham believed God and it was counted for him as righteousness,”) as a proof text to defend their comments about the gospel. The key observation to make is that…
The disintegration of the EU is not the end of the world. It is a sign that the end of the world is anything but nigh. Western culture as we know it is dying at the hands of usurpers, traitors and prodigals. Even the worst rulers throughout Christian history at…
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Pamuk again: “to read well is not to pass one’s eyes and one’s mind slowly and carefully over a text: it is to immerse oneself utterly in its soul. This is why we fall in love with only a few books in a lifetime. Even the most finely honed personal…
Pamuk again, summarizing a comment from Proust concerning reading: “There is, he said, a part of us that stays outside the text to contemplate the table at which we sit, the lamp that illuminates the plate, the garden around us, or the view beyond. When we notice such things, we…
In an essay on Notes from Underground , the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk suggests that Dostoevsky’s “anger was not a simply expression of anti-Westernism or hostility to European thinking: What Dostoyevsky[his spelling] resented was that European thought came to his country at second hand. What angered him was not its…
Jesus comes to bring a sword that sets sons against fathers, daughters against mothers, etc. (Matthew 10:34-39). What is the sword? Perhaps Rome; and when Jesus wields the sword of the Roman armies against Judea and Jerusalem, He sets family members against one another. With Rome threatening, some Jews will…
What is the “Parable of the fig tree” that Jesus mentions in Matthew 24:32? The fig tree’s branches and leaves will tell you that summer is near, and that when the things he describes take place the time of the end is near. But what does this refer to exactly?…
In her contribution to Hagar, Sarah and their Children (WJK), Phyllis Trible develops an interesting feminist reading of the story of Hagar. Her targets (surprise!) patriarchy and hierarchy, but along the way she makes some insightful observations on the text. She notes, for instance, that Hagar’s departure from the household…
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