Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I mentioned last month ( BH 82) in my essay "Like a Dove" that Genesis 8 is a recapitulation of Genesis 1. Let me explicate that assertion here. Of course, the world after the Flood is a new creation, so we may expect a recapitulation of the first creation. It…
The book of Esther is one of the most neglected of the books of the Bible. To be sure, sermons are preached on it, and commentaries have occasionally been written on it, but almost without exception Esther has been interpreted in isolation from the rest of Biblical history, chronology, and…
Dear Mr. ______, . . . Here is how I look at the geocentricity question. Since I don’t recall what I wrote you before, I may be repeating some things. 1. The Bible does not teach it. Biblical passages used to support the idea are being misinterpreted. My original paper…
Answer 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is often taken as a magnificent answer to the question, "What is God?" It reads: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." Presbyterians are fond of praising this statement, preaching on it,…
The gospels tell us that at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him "in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22 & parallels). Biblically sensitive commentators have associated this event with three Old Testament parallels: (1) the hovering of the Spirit over the creation in Genesis 1:2; (2) the…
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (John 8:6) The story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) has been part of the canonical Christian Bible from its earliest…
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Alec Ryrie portrays what it meant to be an early Protestant in his Being Protestant in Reformation Britain . As the TLS reviewer points out, this is no longer a fashionable question: “Historians of the early Reformation now prefer to use the term ‘evangelicals,’ in recognition of the fact that…
Greeks expressed their gratitude, FS Naiden notes ( Smoke Signals for the Gods ), with sacrifice: “Helliodorus, hellenizing his Phoenicians, says that Tyrians used such a formula after one of their number won at the Pythian games. Returning home with the victor, they sacrificed at the seaside, niketerion and charisterion,…
Many classicists suggest that Greek sacrifice was mechanical and automatic. One of the burdens of Naiden’s Smoke Signals for the Gods is to show otherwise. Sacrifices were only acceptable to the gods if the worshiper was ritually and morally pure. Naiden quoted Antiphon: “Many people with unclean hands or some…
Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for works, toil, and perseverance, for their rigorous testing of pretended apostles (Revelation 2:2-3). But then He lodges a stunning charge: They have left their first love ( ten agapen sou ten proten aphekes ). What does that mean? Agape in the New Testament…
When John sees Jesus in glory (Revelation 1:9-20), he describes him from head to toe and back (vv. 14-16). It’s a wasf , a blazon, like the descriptions of the Song of Songs. Jesus is the Lover, and He commissions John as His amanuensis to write love letters to His…
The translation of the name Yahweh into Greek as ho on , “the One who is,” has been seen as a Platonizing or Hellenizing move. Sean McDonough ( YHWH at Patmos , 194) demurs: “God’s declaration of his name, ‘I am who I am,’ served as a natural bridge between…
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