Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…
A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…
The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…
The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…
I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…
Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…
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New Year's Day makes on reflective, at least about the past year, perhaps about life, perhaps, more broadly, about time itself. Many view time as a curse. Some see it as a curse because of missed chances. As one day or year moves on to the next, all we can…
Paraphrased/quoted from Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics , 4.1, pp. 185ff. In the incarnation, the eternal Son of God makes His way into a far country, and takes on the form of a servant. “But the incarnation, the taking of the form of the servant, means not only that God becomes…
GB Caird ( The Revelation of St John the Divine ) has a superb discussion of the harvest scene at the end of Revelation 14. He takes it not as a depiction of horrific judgment but rather as the harvest of the saints in martyrdom. He points out that Jesus…
In his Washington Post piece about the Wheaton College controversy, Miroslav Volf equates Christian positions on Islam to Christian views of Judaism: “Christian theologians neither insisted that they worship a different God than Jews nor did they accuse Jews of idolatry. That’s a step that would have been easy to…
The Economist's Schumpeter reports on the extreme physical disciplines of top American executives - early rising, strenuous exercise, frenetic pace. Then this: “according to one CEO, several of his peers are now dabbling in mind-boosting drugs such as Modafinil and Ritalin, which aid concentration. This trend is likely to intensify:…
According to Hamann, the guilt of the dependent is not in “laziness or cowardice,” as Kant seems to imply. “No, in the blindness of his guardian who pretends to see, and precisely for this reason must assume responsibility for the guilt of all.” Again, “How can one mock the laziness…
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