Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I was still a high school student the first time I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I will never forget the powerful impact the book had on me. Of course, as a second year student, I did not fully digest the book. In spite of subsequent readings, I…
Crises force questions of identity. Identities may remain assumed until some event, or series of events, challenge what may have been taken for granted. The search for identity is an anxious one precisely because it tends to happen in times of upheaval and uncertainty. In his recent book, Orthoxox Anglican…
Peter Leithart recently wrote a fascinating short piece about the Half Shekel Temple Tax as an atonement. Leithart argues three main points. First that the Sanctuary Shekel was heavier, i.e., more valuable than the everyday shekel. Second, he offers some analysis about the order of magnitude of the purchasing power…
There is no denial from the careful reader that 1 Samuel 24 and 26 are telling the same story. Perhaps we should say, virtually the same story. But that the stories are cut from the same cloth is undeniable. What we have over these three chapters—1 Samuel 24-26—is a very…
In his novel That Hideous Strength , C.S. Lewis is able to masterfully illustrate in narrative form so many of his insights about the subversive dangers of Leftist political dogma to Christian civilization. Perceptive essays from Lewis like “The Abolition of Man” and “The Inner Ring” are fleshed out in…
At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city, whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the…
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Roland Worth provides a valuable treatment of the Sermon on the Mount by discussing the OT background to Jesus’ teaching. His overall argument is that the antitheses of Jesus’ sermon do not offer anything especially new but are “firmly rooted in Old Testament teaching.” Jesus’ “I say” is not a…
In his fascinating, if sometimes eccentric book, The Unity of the Bible: Exploring the Beauty and Structure of the Bible , Duane Christensen suggests that 1-2 Kings (like much of the Bible) is structured by a series of embedded heptamerous chiasms (“wheels within wheels” he calls them; also “menorah” structures).…
INTRODUCTION Ahab?s life ends in a battle with the Arameans, but the story of Ahab?s death includes another, deeper battle ?Ethe battle between true and false prophecy. Ahab?s life ends the way it began, with Ahab ignoring Yahweh?s prophet. But he cannot escape the prophet?s word by ignoring the prophet.…
Thanks to Chris Morris for provoking these thoughts, or actually sharing them with me: 1) John 4:1-42 appears to be chiastically structured: A. Jesus baptizing, moving into Galilee, 4:1-4 B. Jesus and the woman discuss water, 4:5-15 C. Jesus and the woman discuss marriage, 4:16-18 D. The woman declares Jesus…
Distinctions between inner and outer, between status and being, run through Berkhof’s treatment of justification in his systematic theology. For instance: Justification does not, as some languages imply, “denote a change that is brought about in man” but rather means “to effect an objective relation, the state of righteousness, by…
Veronica Koperski has a useful (if overly detailed) overview of current debates on Paul and the Law in her 2001 Paulist Press volume, What Are They Saying About Paul and the Law? . Refreshingly, Koperski does not simply review the same old cast of characters, but includes fairly extensive treatments…
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