Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Whatever else the 2016 Presidential cycle has accomplished, it has brought the chasm between nationalism and globalism into sharp relief. Many see this divide as the issue of the campaign (Robert Merry) or of the century (Pat Buchanan). It seems to be a choice we have to make. Christians must…
Salvation is a gift. The righteousness of justification (Romans 5:17) and eternal life (Romans 6:23) are gifts freely offered. According to Risto Saarinen ( God and the Gift ), “God is directly called the giver 104 times [in Scripture], of which 42 are in John’s Gospel and John’s Letters. In…
In the last 40 odd years of studying the Bible, I have read more essays and commentaries on Deuteronomy 6:4 than I can recall. I have also more than twice changed my view on what should be the correct translation of Israel’s central confession. What is so complicated? After the…
Satan is currently bound from gathering the nations in kingly rebellion so that Jesus might gather them in priestly unity. Everything which Scripture records for us, no matter how mundane or mysterious, exists as part of a process of growth to maturity. This transformation is achieved through relationships established by…
God’s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church. God called Abraham to bless the Gentiles through him, and one of Israel’s recurring sins was her failure to carry out this mission. Israel was supposed evoke praise from the Gentiles, but instead…
Are you ready for the New Year? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever He takes you this year? Are you read to follow Him into the garden? Are you ready to stay at His side to be arrested, interrogated, tortured, crucified, buried? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever…
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In The Empty Men , his study of the heroic theme in the Bible, Gregory Mobley catalogs some of the odd weapons used by biblical warriors: “In Judges and 1 Samuel, the relative inferiority of the weapons of the biblical heroes is emphasized. Shamgar ben Anat is lauded for killing…
I have a great deal of sympathy with Jose Miranda’s claim (in Marx and the Bible ) that Paul is writing about justice in Romans, and that the apostles is concerned “with the problem of society . . . of human civilization. His anguish is over the injustice which reigns…
John Dunnill ( Body and Sacrifice , 128-9) argues that for Paul baptism is more than a “sign” of the new age: “For him, resurrection is the actual transformation of the mortal body of Jesus, the reversal of the deathward trend established by Adam: not merely the resuscitation of a…
In some ways, Daniel Ullucci’s The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice helpfully complicates our picture of views on ancient sacrifice, both pre-Christian and Christian. He challenges the standard narrative that claims that Christians straightforwardly and pretty much immediately recognized Jesus’ death as a final sacrifice, and pretty much immediately abandoned…
In a recent article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion , Natalie Gummer lays out the sacrificial cosmology embodied in early Buddhist texts. The premise is that the world is a kitchen, in which things take the forms of ingredients in a cosmic stew - saps, juices,…
In his monograph on Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space , Mark George makes the observation that tabernacle space is “configured horizontally”: “There is not a single step, platform, or dais in tabernacle space. No steps differentiate court space from common space, holy space from court space, or most holy space…
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