Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Integrity seems to have two meanings. It can mean the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. A man of integrity is a person of honour, rectitude and probity, truthful and trustworthy. Integrity also describes a state – the quality of being whole and undivided. If things are…
Get the Psalm 32 Translation here Psalm 32 is the first part of Ps. 32-33, ending with a call to praise that is answered by what follows. Ultimately the psalm needs to be considered as a whole, but what we call Psalm 32 does have its own structure and logic,…
You wouldn’t hit a man with glasses would ya? No, of course not. I’d hit him with a bat. In our culture of frivolity it is tempting for Christians to think that solemnity should be our defining attribute. The coarseness of the world impedes us from enjoying any sort of…
Taking a cue in my last post from early Christian apologetics, I suggested that if we wish to articulate and defend a doctrine of creation ex nihilo in contemporary theology, we would do well to offer a thick description of Yahweh’s divine monarchia (his sole rule or sovereignty). Rather than…
I’m not sure we really understand the insidiousness of unbelief. It is not merely to reject the gospel of Jesus, the existence of a Creator God, or to question biblical morality. At its core, unbelief is ingratitude, and by the very nature of this ingratitude, it must ultimately reject every…
Mark’s narrative of the baptism of Jesus is characteristically brief: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him…
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It has been customary since the middle ages to define sacrifice in terms of death. To sacrifice is to give something over to destruction. Roy Gane points out in his Cult and Character that this does not conform to the biblical usage. The bread of the presence is described as…
In a 1997 review in First Things, Andrew McKenna suggests that Derrida’s most important contribution might ultimately be to deconstruct philosophy so thoroughly that one is left only with theology: “the Sermon on the Mount performs a critique of difference to which any deconstructor can subscribe. Subject to serious misuses,…
Jordan’s reflections on “leprosy” help to explain why Miriam, and not Aaron, becomes leprous in Numbers 12. Jordan notes that the term for “plague” used in Leviticus 13 is actually “touch,” and suggests that the leper is “touched” by Yahweh, sometimes in response to sacrilege, a violation of God’s holiness.…
Jordan’s reflections on “leprosy” help to explain why Miriam, and not Aaron, becomes leprous in Numbers 12. Jordan notes that the term for “plague” used in Leviticus 13 is actually “touch,” and suggests that the leper is “touched” by Yahweh, sometimes in response to sacrilege, a violation of God’s holiness.…
In his stimulating essay on Leviticus 13 (available from Biblical Horizons), Jim Jordan reflects on the fact that a white hair in the flesh makes a man unclean. White hair is associated with glory, and so the uncleanness results from the contradiction between glorification and flesh. The unclean “leper” is…
Robyn Horner helpfully expounds on Derrida’s deconstruction of the gift by considering whether the text can be construed as a gift. In a section of Given Time , Derrida discusses a text by Baudelaire, noting that it is a given “not only because we are first of all in a…
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