Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…
At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…
We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…
Sandra Jacobs's The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…
Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…
Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…
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In his study of The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul , Michael Newton argues that Paul transfers the logic and patterns of purity and cult from the temple to the new temple-community, the church. Relying mainly on Corinthians, Newton writes: “By describing the Christian…
A hermeneutical rule of thumb I share with students: Chapter 2 comes after chapter 1. It has many applications, as in “Chapter 18 comes after chapter 17.” Make the observation, then ask, Why? Why is that story there , after this one and before that one? The story of Sodom…
After describing the heroes of faith from creation to Jericho with some leisure, Hebrews 11 closes with a rapid-fire survey of everything from the judges on (vv. 32-38). It's a nicely constructed passage. First, six individuals are named, followed by a general reference to “prophets”: Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David,…
In a 1991 article in the Tyndale Bulletin , Edwin Judge reviews the symbolic resonances of the phrase “mark of the beast,” but notes, rightly that “the visions of Revelation keep disconcertingly coming down to earth” (158). So he looks for historical evidence of a mark imposed by Roman authorities…
In an essay on atonement in the Jewish Studies Quarterly from the early 1990s, Mary Douglas explains “the social origins of ideas about defilement in general”: Living in a community, people find themselves wanting to keep apart from some dissimilar others and to be included within sets of similars. To…
“The ambition of the liberal political philosopher,” writes Paul Kahn ( Putting Liberalism in its Place , 120), is to find that set of arguments that is so compelling that every individual, not corrupted by the illogic of interest, would necessarily affirm those reasons as his own.” Because it assumes…
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