Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…
One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…
Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…
Showing page 91 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
I have argued elsewhere that the Omride dynasty is a counterfeit Davidic dynasty, and that in this structure Ahab is a counterfeit Solomon. John Van Seters suggests in a 2000 Presidential address to La societe canadienne des etudes bibliques that Ahab is also a Davidic character, at least in the…
Bruce McCormack?s article on justification, alluded to in an earlier post, is quite good. He rightly points out that ?the term ?justification?Ehas its home in the judicial sphere,?Ebut equally rightly points out that God?s judgments are different from human judgments: ?God?s verdict differs in that it creates the reality it…
Princeton’s Bruce McCormack protests against the “uncritical expansion of the concept of perichoresis today on the past of a good many theologians.” He suggests that the term “is rightly employed in trinitarian discourse for describing that which is dissimilar in the analogy between intra-trinitarian relations among the divine ‘person’ on…
Berkhof has some intriguing comments about the distinction between “active or objective” justification and “passive or subjective” justification. The first refers to the declaration that God makes concerning the sinner, that the demands of the law have been met and the sinner is considered righteous for Christ’s sake. In this…
If ?justify?Eis both a verdict (?this person is righteous?E and the carrying out of a sentence (?this person is delivered from slavery to Sin?E, then clearly justification cannot be based on anything that the righteous person does. Justification is purely by grace. So, the ?deliverdict?Econstruction of justification does not turn…
If ?justify?Eis both a verdict (?this person is righteous?E and the carrying out of a sentence (?this person is delivered from slavery to Sin?E, then clearly justification cannot be based on anything that the righteous person does. Justification is purely by grace. So, the ?deliverdict?Econstruction of justification does not turn…
Showing page 2024 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
