Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…
Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…
Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…
Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…
Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…
Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…
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W e live in a death-avoidant culture. We have moved the dying from the home to nursing home or hospital, out of the paths of everyday life, and we send the dead to the antiseptic environs of the funeral home. We can view an embalmed corpse without the noxious experience…
J oshua W. Jipp argues in Christ Is King that “kingship discourse” provides the “most helpful framework” (42) for understanding Paul's teaching on law, salvation, and justice. Greco-Roman political discourse was full of kingship discourse. In this “ideology,” the king is the image of the divine king who comes as…
W hen Queen Sheba visits Solomon, she sees things that take her breath away (2 Samuel 9:3–4), seven things, which roughly match the seven days of creation: 1. All she sees expresses the wisdom of Solomon, wisdom from God who made the world by His wisdom (Proverbs 8). 2. Sheba…
M atthew Tuininga’s Calvin’s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church aims to be more than an historical study of Calvin’s “two kingdoms” political theology. Tuininga wants to demonstrate that Calvin’s theology is a neglected resource for contemporary Christian political engagement. According to Calvin, Christ rules everything in…
T aking a summer break. Back later in June.
I n a 1981 article on “The Chronicler's Solomon” in the Westminster Theological Journal (43:2), Ray Dillard lays out the following chiastic structure for the reign of Solomon (pp. 299-300): A. Solomon's wealth and wisdom (1:1-17) (Trade in horses, 1:14-17) B. Recognition by gentiles/dealings with Hiram (2:1-16) ( Yahweh's love…
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