Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
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Running through the four elements, Smart celebrates the air: For the AIR. is purified by prayer which is made aloud and with all our might. For loud prayer is good for weak lungs and for a vitiated throat. For SOUND is propagated in the spirit and in all directions. For…
More Smart: For FRICTION is inevitable because the Universe is FULL of God’s works. For the PERPETUAL MOTION is in all the works of Almighty GOD. For it is not so in the engines of man, which are made of dead materials, neither indeed can be.
More from Christopher Smart: For the feast of TRUMPETS should be kept up, that being the most direct and acceptable of all instruments. For the TRUMPET of God is a blessed intelligence and so are all the instruments in HEAVEN. For GOD the father Almighty plays upon the HARP of…
INTRODUCTION 2 John is written into a crisis situation. As Jesus predicted, antichrists have “gone into the world” (v. 7), deceiving those who are not on guard. John writes to warn about the deceivers, and to tell the church how to respond to them. THE TEXT “The Elder, to the…
1 John 5:21: Little children, guard yourselves from idols. John tells us that those who are begotten of God are not dominated by sin, and that the one begotten of God keeps him from the evil one. It’s not clear here who is doing the guarding. Is the “Begotten One”…
1 John 5:13: “These things I have written to those who believe into the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” We are all born into the world bearing the name of Adam, with his heritage and his destiny. Baptism…
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