Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When I wrote my commentary on Ecclesiastes A Table in the Mist I took Eccl. 11:1-2 as a reference to the risk of international trade. It sure did seem to me like a reference to Solomon’s risky trade with other nations. Israel exported grain (bread) and Solomon’s ships returned to…
When we read an alphabetical psalm in English, we miss the fact that each verse begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I have found one way to get around this, which is for the leader to announce something relevant about each letter before reading his half of…
How does the Lord’s Supper proclaim the death of Jesus until He comes? (1 Corinthians 11:26). Historically, liturgists have attempted to locate some act in the rite of the Supper that corresponds to the death of Jesus: the fraction (breaking of bread), or the fact that bread and wine are…
These notes are posted here by request. We all now live in the age of slob worship thanks to the “sixties.” I never experienced sitting for prayer until 20 years ago. Jesus was unhappy when His disciples could not watch and pray for one hour. Today’s slob Christians complain if…
On September 11, 2001, Jesus brought judgment upon the United States of America. Following His normal procedure, He used an even more evil force to do it (Habakkuk 1-3). The warning Jesus gives throughout the Bible to those He uses to punish others is that they need to repent, or…
Because of Donald Trump, the “Birther” issue is heating up. It is not going away, and is only part of a larger cluster of issues in regard to the President. Virtually all of the relevant documents concerning who he is and where he has been, have been suppressed, at great…
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In a recent discussion of penal substitution in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society , Garry Williams responds to the criticism that penal theories of the atonement are un-Trinitarian because they make the Son an object to the Father. Williams stresses that Jesus is a “subject of the atonement,”…
Pannenberg’s treatment of the atonement in Jesus - God and Man is one of the best short discussions of the subject available. Unlike most classical atonement theologies, Pannenberg’s integrates the whole gospel story and the resurrection into his account of the meaning of the atonement. One of the best parts…
White Christmas (1954) has been part of family Christmases for as long as I can remember. Bing Crosby’s voice is wonderful, but his middle-age-man-playing-hip hasn’t worn well over the years. Danny Kaye’s cracked-voice nervousness, his silly humor, and his surprisingly skillful dancing still work. Like all musicals, the film is…
Jack Miles a rambling, erudite, sometimes-insightful, half-hearted defense of religious faith to cultured despisers in the Atlantic . He found that as he matured, his youthful enthusiasm for Bertrand Russell and Camus waned. Turns out that science doesn’t overcome human ignorance like Russell thought it would: “with every increase in…
Frances Young argues in her Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian Writers that the cross is primarily expiatory: It is God’s way of dealing with sin. It is not propitiatory in the ancient Greek sense of placating an angry God. How could it be, she asks, since the cross…
Frances Young ( Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian Writers ) has a very rich account of Origen’s understanding of the atonement. Recent critics of sacrificial violence have nothing on Origen. Reflecting on the story of Jephthah’s daughter, he wrote that “the Being must be a very cruel one…
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