Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mrs. Marguerite Lane of Grand Rapids writes to ask if I have ever noticed a correlation between the eight beatitudes of Matthew 5 and the eight woes of Matthew 23. I confess that I have not. A glance at various commentators reveals that such a correspondence does not seem to…
1. The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, the burden. The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: 2. Surely I am more stupid than any other man, And I do not have the understanding of a man. 3. And I have not learned wisdom, But I have…
Psalm 137 is widely regarded as one of the meanest of the imprecatory psalms. Certainly as we read it it is seems to be a song of pure vengeance. The exiles in Babylon, in grief over the judgment that Babylon has brought upon them, pray for the destruction of that…
In the Levitical law, the priests received two particular portions of each peace offering: the "wave offering" of the breast and the "heave offering" (or better, "contribution") of the right thigh. The purpose of this essay is to attempt to determine the reason why the second of these, the thigh,…
The story of Jesus’ visit, early in His ministry, to the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth is recorded for us in Luke 4:16-30. You may remember that Jesus read from Isaiah about how the Messiah would preach the gospel, care for the poor, work miracles, and bring in…
(The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what I think needs to be said —…
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Several times, Revelation identifies God triadically, triunely as the one “who is and who was and who comes” (1:4, 8; 4:8). He is the present God, the God who reaches back beyond the origins of all things - the God of whom it could always be said “He is” -…
In the introduction to his recent Prophetic Lament , Soong-Chan Rah summarizes studies that show that “lament is often missing from the narrative of the American church” (21). One study “found that in the Lutheran Book of Worship , the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer , the Catholic Lectionary for…
Ron Highland's The Faithful Creator is “sustained argument with evangelical open theism, liberal process theism and other models of creation and providence that deny that God accomplishes his good will in all things.” All such paradigms, he argues, fail ‘to take God's transcendence seriously enough, thinking that God cannot relate…
Ron Highland argues ( The Faithful Creator ) that discussions of providence and freedom often get off on the wrong foot because of a faulty definition of freedom. “Many recent discussions of freedom give the impression that the Bible speaks directly and often about a freedom of the will given…
The exalted martyrs sing “the song ( ode ) of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb” (Revelation 15:3). That could mean that the martyrs sing the song about or even composed by Moses and the Lamb. It could also mean that they sing a song…
In an address to Congress in 1826, Charleston's Catholic bishop John England declares his allegiance, and the allegiance of his church, to the American polity: “I would not allow to the Pope, or to any bishop of our church, outside the Union, the smallest interference with the humblest vote at…
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