Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I thought it might be good to put this up here, since it is 14 years old, and itself reflects earlier discussion. From this you can see that we at BH have been considering this notion for quite some time. Clearly, the last word has not been said. — James…
Hopefully, my commentary on James will be out later this year. But here are a few chiasms for your consideration. I think the James 5 chiasm orginally came from Doug Jordan. The entire book of James is focused on how the pastors and leaders (“brothers”) of the church use their…
In my first post I noted that the parables of Jesus were not simply illustrative stories. They are really nothing like the kind of simple, homely illustrations that preachers often use to explain difficult concepts to their congregations. Just to be clear: there’s nothing wrong with illustrating one’s sermonic statements.…
Ephesians is often treated as a pure type example of the Pauline method that “the indicative preceds the imperative.” But what Paul does first is pray . Simply reading verse 3 and following involves readers in a prayer of thanksgiving to God–and much more so for those listening to the…
Yesterday, I took part with my oldest son in a church-sponsored city outreach project (not because I’m especially prone to such behavior but because my son has a Boy Scout requirement that this would help him meet). Before we were sent out on our various jobs, the leader gave a…
There is a scene in Prince Caspian , the second in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia that helps explain why it is we have four Gospels, that is four accounts of the Good News of Jesus Christ—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is the account of Lucy’s longed-for experience…
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An Eternal Kingdom, 1 Kings 16:8-34 INTRODUCTION Reading 1-2 Kings from beginning to end might give the impression that the book is about the unfaithfulness of Israel. It tells the story of Solomon?s rise and fall, the division of the kingdom, the deterioration of Israel and Judah, and the beginning…
Alessandro Baricco, Without Blood . Translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. 97 pages. Without Blood , Alessandro Baricco’s fifth book, begins in horror. Four-year-old Nina Roca hides beneath a trap door in an old farmhouse listening as several men murder her father and brother.…
Donald A. Norman, Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things (Basic Books, 2004), 257 pp. When Israeli scientist Noam Tractinsky first heard of studies in Japan that ATM machines with an attractive arrangement of buttons were perceived as functioning better than machines with an unattractive arrangement, he was…
Psalm 107:22 We saw in the sermon that song accompanies the ascension offering in the worship of the tabernacle. A sacrifice of praise is a means of ascent to God, calling on Him to draw near in glory and responding to His glory as He draws near. Through song, our…
God created a world with three environments. At the center of the world was a garden, the sanctuary where Adam and Eve were to worship their Creator. Surrounding the sanctuary was the land of Eden, and outside the land of Eden were other lands like Havilah, Cush, and Assyria. We…
Luke 14:21-24 The parable of the wedding feast is a parable about the kingdom, where the kingdom is envisioned, as it often is in Jesus?Eteaching, as a dinner, a banquet, a wedding feast. The key point in this particular parable is about who is invited to the wedding feast. First…
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