Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the beginning, this was home. The world, I mean. Creation wasn’t just a series of unconnected events, a flashy display of building prowess. Yes, creation was intended to give God glory—which I guess you could say means that the creation was supposed to show the greatness—the weight —of God.…
We think we know. God is a stern Rule-Maker who has a bit of an anger management problem. Or, God is the indulgent Daddy in the sky. Or, God used to be a stern Ruler, but he got nice. Christians don't believe any of that. Christians say the one God…
Unfortunately today, baptism seems so… tiny . It’s actually… cute (maybe sweet?) when it’s given to a child. A little baby, a small gathering of people, a little bowl of water, tiny drops sprinkled upon the little baby’s head followed by a small applause and a short prayer. How… small!…
Early on in the history of the church, Christians understood that the 1st century Jewish practice of meeting for prayer at set times of the day was a good and biblical practice to continue. We find references to this in several places in Scripture. In Acts 3 we find Peter…
Editors’ note: For those interested in a review of Richard Hays’s latest book, see here . Richard Hays is a renowned New Testament scholar. The professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School originally studied English literature, giving his reading of Scripture a pronounced literary sensibility. He’s perhaps best known…
As many commentators point out, Genesis is structured by 10 uses of the word toledoth , "generations." The word means something along the lines of "begotten things," and the toledoth statements head the various sections of Genesis. When Genesis 2:4 announces "these are the begettings of heaven and earth" and…
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Wiker and Witt suggest that God created pandas as “comic relief” in a blessed fit of “divine whimsy.” The suggestion is troubling even for Christians who defend creation, because, being engineers, they have swallowed the reductive notion that creation must be functional. Wiker and Witt offer this rejoinder: “To spurn…
How long will monkeys typing randomly on typewriters take to produce the works of Shakespeare? That’s been a way of thinking about Darwinian evolution since who knows where. In 2002, researches at the Paignton Zoo in England decided to find out. They left a computer terminal in a cage with…
The earliest known version of “Little Red Riding Hood” comes from Egbert of Liege’s school trivium textbook Fecunda natis ( The Richly Laden Ship , c. 1022/24). Egbert’s verse version, which appears to be drawn from an oral folktale, begins with Red’s baptism: “A certain man took up a girl…
In a footnote in Fear and Trembling explaining the phrase “things do not go in the world as the preacher preaches,” Kierkegaard says, “In the old days, people said: It is too bad that things do not go in the world as the preacher preaches. Maybe the time will come,…
During the 19th century, various European states forcibly united divided churches. A similar thing happened in Zaire in 1970. Mbiti writes, “the Eglise du Christ au Zaire . . . brought together Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples and a host of other Protestant traditions.” The Church of Christ became the only…
Mbiti tells a disheartening story about an effort to unite Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Moravians in Kenya and Tanzania. At a 1965 meeting that lasted several days, the group had come to agreement on all the issues that had been seen as obstacles to union. Mbiti picks up the…
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