Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18:1-11 appears on the surface to be a straightforward, if somewhat unusual, narrative of Jesus’ arrest by officers of the chief priests and Pharisees accompanied by an apparently large group of Roman soldiers, all of them led by the betrayer, Judas. But there is much more here than what…
Why is the US embroiled in the Middle East? There are two primary answers: Oil and Israel. Both are fairly intractable problems, the latter in significant part because of the unique convergence of theology and politics that has forged American policy in the region. Dispensationalists insist that we must bless…
There’s a common theme that arises in the study of theologians James B. Jordan and Peter Leithart. It is this: Context matters. Details matter. This is God’s Word. The details are not arbitrary “filler” hiding the kernel of truth in the husk of the text. The husk and the kernel…
Perhaps the most fearful of all possibilities in the world is the possibility of betrayal on the part of someone who is in a “position of trust.” This, unfortunately, is the first block in what ought to be the foundation of every marriage in the world. Every woman has a…
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The way we talk about the world matters. Our doctrine of creation tells us that words do not simply reflect reality. They also shape it and the way we inhabit it. Among the world’s many language groups, the Church is distinct. She is called to name things with Scriptural language,…
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“A tradition of seven heavens and seven earths was popular in the Near East during the later part of the first millennium B.C.E. and the first millennium C.E.,” writes Wayne Horowitz ( Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography , 217). He elaborates: “Surviving Hebrew and Arabic texts from this time present cosmographies in…
Yahweh destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot escapes with his daughters to a cave, where they get their father drunk with wine, and seduce him, giving birth to Moab and Ammon. Late in Judges, Gibeah of Benjamin has become a Sodom, and Yahweh sends the rest of Israel…
When there’s a famine in the land, people leave for brighter horizons. They find food; they multiply; they get rich. It happens to Abram in Egypt, to Jacob in Haran, to Israel in Egypt. Exile agrees with Israel; they always return with children and treasures. Except Naomi. She goes to…
The gods fight back chaos and form a universe, and set up an image to mark the boundary of their ordered realm. A god instructs a king to build a temple, who places an image of the God in the inner sanctuary. The zones of ancient cosmology - heaven, sky,…
John hears a voice behind him and turns to see the voice. First he sees lampstands (Revelation 1:10, 12). Austin Farrer ( The Revelation of St. John Divine , 65) points out that the turning and the lampstands come from Zechariah 4:1-2. He explains, “Zechariah’s vision was familiar to Israelites…
Jesus has eyes of fire (Revelation 1:14). Eyes are organs of judgment, and to get near Jesus you have to pass through the fire. In the next phrase, Jesus is said to have feet like bronze, glowing as if “fired in a furnace” (v. 15). He has walked through the…
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