Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions…
Stones External and Internal The modern practice of dismantling the Bible into a shambles of documents authored in response to disparate historical events rather than viewing it as a unified testimony inspired by God is a surefire way to miss what is actually going on in the text. This failure…
King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by Zerach. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end,…
What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. It's can serve as a summary of Paul's letter to the Romans, and throws some important light on the themes of that letter. Paul begins his sermon with a quick…
Iago as Tempter The answer to our first question — whether or not Othello is really great tragedy — has already pointed the way to the answer for the second question — Was Othello a noble Moor or a fool? The two questions, of course, are necessarily related. The fall…
When Adam McIntosh was ordained as Pastor of Saint David’s Church (CREC) in Houston on June 11, 2017, it was the culmination of decades of preparation. Adam is the product of two continents and three Christian traditions. Born in Paducah, Kentucky, he lived his early years partly in Jericho, where…
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At His ascension, Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, was exalted into heavenly glory where John saw Him “having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.” At Pentecost, which we celebrate in a little over a week, Jesus poured…
The meaning of the word “grace” has been a central question in the Federal Vision discussions. On the anti-FV side, it’s often said that “grace” means not only “unmerited favor,” but “favor shown in the face of demerit.” Pro-FV types point out that the Bible uses “grace” and equivalents in…
When in distress or confusion, literate medieval Christians would sometimes let the Bible drop open, and took guidance and comfort the first passage their eye alighted on. This could be superstitious, of course. But it could also come from a deeply genuine faith. Sometimes, we don’t need to hear specific,…
From a sermon by John Donne: “God made this whole world in such an uniformity, such a correspondency, such a concinnity of parts that it was an instrument, perfectly in tune: we may say, the trebles, the highest strings, were disordered first; the best understandings, angels and men, put this…
Johannes Kepler wrote in 1619: “the movements of the heavens are nothing except a certain everlasting polyphony (intelligible, not audible) with dissonant tunings, like certain syncopations or cadences (wherewith men imitate these natural dissonances), which tends towards fixed and prescribed clauses - the single clauses having six terms (like voices)…
Barth offers a challenging critique of the covenant of works. Let me summarize three points, briefly. First, Barth points out that the covenant of works sets law and works as the framework for the entire account of redemptive history and God’s dealings with man. The work of Jesus is understood…
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