Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
(continued from previous issue) Between 30 and 50 What did the Levites do between age 30 and 50? Numbers 4 shows us that they carried the house of God on their shoulders. Lifting up the Lord is an image of worship in the Bible, and David’s restructuring of the Levites…
When God created the world, He created two lands: the Throne-land of Eden (entered through the sanctuary-garden, the Garden of Eden), and the Outlying Lands, such as the lands of Havilah and Cush. This essentially bi-polar world is the world of the Old Creation, and it continued to exist until…
Color is inescapable, except for those who are color blind. In our church architecture, we either employ color schemes that are helpful to worship, or we employ color schemes that are not helpful. Of course, this assertion merely begs the question: What color schemes are most helpful. God showed interest…
As I noted in an earlier article in Rite Reasons , the Church Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine all claimed that baptism inducts the baptized person into membership in the royal priesthood of the church, and Thomas Aquinas said that baptism, by imprinting an indelible “character” on the soul, confers…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
In my Preliminary Commentary on Daniel , which many of you have obtained, I argued in chapter 13 that the four monsters called up from the sea by the evangelistic work of the four winds (the saints) represented the deep hatred of God that evangelistic work brings to the fore…
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Jody Bottum’s lengthy piece on “John Paul the Great” (Weekly Standard, April 18) is characteristically insightful and elegant. A couple of Bottum’s points stand out. He describes John Paul’s “star” quality, emphasizing “an obvious and easily triggered sort of joy : the ability to please and the ability to be…
J.A. Gray has far and away the most perceptive review I’ve seen of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead in the March issue of First Things . Gray attends to the gaps and reticence of the narrator, John Ames, pointing out that Ames never mentions the name of his young son, to whom…
INTRODUCTION Music, including choral music, has been an important element in worship since the time of David. But what is music for? And what is the choir for? The book of Chronicles gives us answers to these questions. THE TEXT ?So they brought the ark of God and set it…
Luc Brisson’s 2004 book, How Philosophers Saved Myths examines how both classical and Christian writers in antiquity employed allegorical interpretation to find meaning in ancient mythology. His opening pages offer a neat summary of the transition from poetry/myth-making to philosophy and history in ancient Greece. Writing, he argues, marks a…
Stephen Barr has a fine review of John Polkinghorne’s recent Science and the Trinity (Yale) in the May issue of First Things . Along the way, he offers some sharp and devastating criticisms of Polkinghorne’s unfortunate acceptance of open theism, which Polkinghorne accepts because, in Barr’s words, it “makes room…
Stephen Barr has a fine review of John Polkinghorne’s recent Science and the Trinity (Yale) in the May issue of First Things . Along the way, he offers some sharp and devastating criticisms of Polkinghorne’s unfortunate acceptance of open theism, which Polkinghorne accepts because, in Barr’s words, it “makes room…
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