Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Study in Biblical and Practical Theology Sunday School Notes / Epiphany 2004 Introductory Note: January 6 is Epiphany in the traditional church calendar. Though Epiphany is often treated as a single day, with the Sundays following counted as “Sundays after Epiphany,” we will treat Epiphany as an extended season.…
Imagine someone from another world trying to learn to live in our society according to our customs. What if someone gave him a check for a hundred dollars for his birthday–the first check he had ever seen in his life? Would he immediately understand how a check was used? Perhaps…
According to Presbyterian doctrine, as articulated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, baptism is a baptized person’s “admission… into the visible church.” By referring to the “visible church,” the document makes clear it is referring to the present institutional Church with all her imperfections, as opposed to the future Church…
N. T. Wright claims that in the Apostle Paul’s writings “righteousness,” as it predicated of humans, denotes “covenant membership.” When he wrote this in the New Bible Dictionary edited by Sinclair Ferguson, J. I. Packer, and David Wright, no one thought this was too big a deal. However, when he…
It seems almost human nature to think that we can find something to do for God that will make Him do us favors. If we live more virtuously, or cut down on a vice or two, then God will have to reward us. But the problem with this notion is…
The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. The First Commandment reads (I’m using NASB throughout): “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Obviously, trusting in someone or something else (even one’s own good works) for justification, sanctification, and eternal life”…
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Mesopotamian temples were sometimes made of bricks, and, according to M. J. Geller (a contribution to Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East ), great care was taken with the first brick, the “auspicious brick.” Geller writes, “When a temple was not built of stone (the usual practice) but of…
In his study of Ritual and Cult at Ugarit , Dennis Pardee discusses the similarities and differences between Ugaritic and Israelite cult. One of the “most striking set of similarities,” he says, “is provided by those terms that are either etymologically related to corresponding Hebrew terms.” The two languages use…
In 2008, William Deresiewicz published an article in The American Scholar on “ The Disadvantages of Elite Education .” Drawing on his years of study and graduate teaching at Columbia and his time at Yale, he argued that his education had made him incapable of carrying on a conversation with…
Frank Vertosick’s Mind: A Unified Theory of Intelligence is out there. He argues that living things are all intelligence, going so far as to suggest that “amoebas may be the smartest things on the planet” and claims that life is intelligence at the molecular level.” In short, “all living things—even…
B.W. Powe’s Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye is a sassy book about two of Canada’s greatest intellectuals, McLuhan the orator and rhetorician and popular guru, Frye the media-shy theorist of literary archetypes. Powe deals with their relationship as colleagues at the University of Toronto, as well as describing their direct…
Flood stories are widespread in the ancient world, and many studies compare the Babylonian account with the best known account, that of Noah in Genesis. Y.S. Chen’s The Primeval Flood Catastrophe , a revision of the author’s DPhil dissertation, looks at flood traditions from another angle, attempting to trace the…
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