Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The preceding essay has caused me to consider the possibility that the life of Abraham as recounted in Genesis contains a typological prophecy of the history of Israel; that is, that the events in Abraham’s life broadly anticipate events in Israel’s history. This kind of pattern is seen in the…
by: Jeff Meyers and James Jordan In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of a man who had been ill for 38 years and who was lying by a pool located by the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. This sheep waited, as did many other infirm people, for an…
What had been reduced to ruin by this sex, would by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. —Tertullian What is Paul saying about women and salvation…
Back in Biblical Horizons 132 I discussed the horrible abuse of the converted men of Salem/Shechem in Genesis 34. These Hivites had joined the covenant by circumcision and then were slaughtered by Simeon and Levi. That, however, is not the end of their story. In Joshua 9 we find the…
Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…
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Baylor University Press is hosting a reception to celebrate the release of my Gratitude: An Intellectual History . It will take place at the First Things offices in Manhattan on Thursday, March 6, at 6 PM. For details, click here .
Jesus addresses seven letters to seven “angels” of the churches (Revelation 2-3). Commentators differ on whether the angels are spiritual beings, ecclesial guardian angels, or human beings, “messengers.” The letter to Ephesus seems decisive. There, Jesus charges that the angel has left his first love (Revelation 2:4), “fallen” from his…
The seven stars in Jesus’ hand are the angels of the churches, the seven lampstands are the churches (Revelation 1:20). In the temple imagery that John is drawing on, the lamps on the lampstand are the lamps themselves, the lights that make the lampstand luminous. The lampstand of the temple…
The distinction between appearance and reality is an old saw in philosophy. It appears in the letters to the churches (Revelation 2-3) as an opposition between being and saying, a (distinctively Hebraic?) emphasis on the word. Several letters describe the challenge. At Ephesus, there are “saying apostles” who are not…
In his study of the sacramental shape of Eberhard Jungel’s theology, The Interruptive Word , R. David Nelson suggests that “in many types of ecclesiology, Jesus Christ and the church . . . are conceived as identical” (167). He offers several examples, mostly Catholic: “ Lumen gentium . . .…
Andrew Wilson thinks that the Ukrainian protesters have won . But the battle for a free Ukraine is just beginning. Russian won’t make it easy. “the new government in Ukraine, however it’s made up, will be given the briefest of ritualistic honeymoons before Russia uses every instrument at its disposal…
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