Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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I explore some of the astral symbolism of the book of Revelation at the Trinity House site .
Tom Phillips reports in the Telegraph that China is “poised to become not just the world’s number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.” According to Purdue’s Fenggang Yang, it will happen in “less than a generation.” Phillips adds, “China’s Protestant community, which had just one million members…
Anthony Gottlieb uses his review of Rebecca Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex to speculate on how ancient philosophers might have employed social media and information technology: “The epigrammatic Heraclitus would surely have appreciated the enforced brevity of Twitter. Diogenes the Cynic, who made a spectacle of himself in order to…
One of the burdens of William Easterly’s The Tyranny of Experts is that the state is one of the great obstacles to development. As Howard French summarizes the argument in the NYTBR , “Easterly’s stories unfailingly reinforce a select number of crucial themes, the boldest being that the people of…
The scene in heaven in Revelation 4 is a temple scene. It’s also the beginning of John’s sky journey among the stars and constellations. But the combination of a throne and throne s indicates another setting: This is a courtroom. That’s what thrones indicate elsewhere in Scripture (Psalm 122:5; Daniel…
Jesus has to keys to open and close doors (Revelation 3:7-8). That could be a door of mission, but the next chapter of the book shows an open door. It doesn’t stand between church and world but between heaven and earth (4:1). The door Jesus opens to the church in…
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