Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For many people the date October 31 is significant not only for being the Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve, Halloween) but as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. These theses were a list of…
It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…
The following is an excerpt from Peter Leithart's forthcoming two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark). Y ou must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings,” a voice tells John (Rev. 10:11). Then someone gives him a “reed like a rod” and instructs him to measure (11:1).…
Josiah is an ideal Davidic king in many ways. He not only “did right,” but he “walked in the ways of his father David” and “did not turn aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). At the age of 16, he began to seek Yahweh, and…
One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Paul Ricoeur, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…
This has always been the position of the Christian Church, and from an historical perspective the present situation in evangelicalism is appalling. The early liturgies of the Church, which are still used in Episcopal and Lutheran worship, are laced with psalm phrases. The early hymns, such as the Te Deum…
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A year ago, I observed the shift from singular “Servant” to plural “servants” within Isaiah 40-54. Further work has revealed a larger pattern. ebed , “servant,” is used 42x in the Hebrew text of Isaiah. The distribution of the word is significant, It is used only five times in the…
Balaam tries to curse Israel but the Lord turns the curse to blessing. He alludes to the exodus of Jacob and Israel from Egypt, and then says, “He couches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse him? Blessed is everyone who blesses you, and…
In his history of Mesopotamian religion, Treasures of Darkness , Thorkild Jacobsen calls attention to the intimate relationship between a temple and the god who was supposed to reside in it. The presence of the temple was “visible reassurance that the God was present and available, that he - as…
At the creation, God spoke and “did” or “made” ( ‘asah ) things. God speaks again to Judah, with the same creative word, a word that will form a new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17). Something is “done” or “made,” as it was at the beginning (Isaiah 65:12;…
I offer a brief assessment of postmodernism at the Trinity House web site .
John Walton’s discussion of Intelligent Design is a mess ( The Lost World of Genesis 1 ). He writes, “The difficulty they face is that if there is intelligent design, there must logically be an intelligent designer” (126). That inference is not a “difficulty,” but one of the aims of…
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