Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Gambling The Bible nowhere condemns gambling, and so we need to be careful in our assessment of it. Let me begin by making a strong case against gambling. Then I will surprise most readers by pointing out that gambling may not always be sinful. The reader should bear in mind…
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991). Reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Michael Crawford, a…
A close supporter of Biblical Horizons asks whether it is proper and wise to get involved in all the boycotts that Christians are being asked to observe today. She raises the point that Paul’s advice about eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to the discussion. I think she is…
Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in the fourth year of his reign, which was 480 years after Israel came out of Egypt, the year A.M. 2993 (1 Kings 6:1). Seven years later, in the year A.M. 3000, the Temple building was finished (1 Kings 6:38). The…
Several months back, a candidate for ordination was being examined for entrance into the Presbytery of which I am a member. The candidate had a good deal of trouble with the exam on the sacraments, stumbling badly as he tried to define the "nature of the sacrament." Apparently in an…
Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book, The Struggle for America’s Soul , Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow presents a typical, though hypothetical, case study: Mabel Miller. Mabel lives alone, thousands of miles from her family. She grew up in a Baptist Church, but now, approaching 65,…
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The resurrection was a judicial act, the Father's response to Jesus who “handed himself over to the righteous Judge” (1 Peter 2:23). But what is the verdict? What is the Father saying about Jesus, to Jesus, to us, in the resurrection? Raymund Schwager ( Jesus in the Drama of Salvation…
In his 1956 The Cinema, or The Imaginary Man, Edgar Morin observes that cinema might have been turned to practical uses instead of spectacle. Its fate could have been the fate of the flying machine and the automobile: “All the commentaries in 1896 looked toward the scientific future of the…
In Exodus, Israel moves, as James Jordan has long said, from slavery to Sabbath. That is a beautiful summary of the book, but it must be filled out. The full movement is from slavery to Sinai to Sabbath. Sinai is a way-station, and a necessary one, on the way to…
Jesus was a unifier - of his opponents as much as of his followers. As Raymund Schwager says, Jesus turned “all sections of the Jewish leadership against him,” and this was “a decisive factor in their cooperation” ( Jesus in the Drama of Salvation , 89, quoting R. Pesch). He…
In Raymund Schwager's dramatic analysis of the atonement, Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom of His good Father, meets rejection and begins to warn of judgment, and then, in a surprising twist, Himself goes to judgment. Jesus' subjection to judgment does not relieve His opponents of judgment. On the contrary, they…
Why did Jesus die on a cross? Thomas asks ( ST III, 46, 4). He gives a variety of answers: Adam sinned at a tree, so Jesus saves at a tree; Jesus suffered in the air to purify the atmosphere; Jesus was elevated in death to show us the way…
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