Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions…
Stones External and Internal The modern practice of dismantling the Bible into a shambles of documents authored in response to disparate historical events rather than viewing it as a unified testimony inspired by God is a surefire way to miss what is actually going on in the text. This failure…
King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by Zerach. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end,…
What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. It's can serve as a summary of Paul's letter to the Romans, and throws some important light on the themes of that letter. Paul begins his sermon with a quick…
Iago as Tempter The answer to our first question — whether or not Othello is really great tragedy — has already pointed the way to the answer for the second question — Was Othello a noble Moor or a fool? The two questions, of course, are necessarily related. The fall…
When Adam McIntosh was ordained as Pastor of Saint David’s Church (CREC) in Houston on June 11, 2017, it was the culmination of decades of preparation. Adam is the product of two continents and three Christian traditions. Born in Paducah, Kentucky, he lived his early years partly in Jericho, where…
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When the nations bring their treasures to Zion (Isaiah 60:6), they come with camels. It’s an unusual site. The patriarchs have camels (the word is used 18x in Genesis 24 alone, 25x in Genesis). After that, camels are typically the mounts for Gentile visitors or invaders. Midianites riding camels swarm…
When Zion sees her sons and daughters returning home in the arms of the nations, she is stunned (Isaiah 60:5). Her heart trembles ( pachad ; cf. Deuteronomy 28:66-67) and grows large ( rachab ; cf. Isaiah 54:2). In short, she has a heart attack, and a flushed face to…
Romanticism is often seen as a reaction against the Enlightenment. Louis Dupre thinks that’s too simplistic ( The Quest of the Absolute: Birth and Decline of European Romanticism , 4-5). Rather, Romanticism transforms the values of the Enlightenment by turning them into a sublime. Dupre writes, “Romanticism incorporates what the…
Augustine puzzled over the mysteries of memory and forgetfulness. Where are memories “stored”? Where do they go when we forget something? You forget where you left your phone, or forget what you were going to say, and then it comes back to you. Where was it in the meantime? Forgetfulness…
In his introduction to Kierkegaard’s Kierkegaard’s Attack Upon “Christendom” 1854-1855 , Walter Lowrie suggests that Kierkegaard was “moreevidently andmore fundamentally a Catholicor perhaps it would be better to say,more consciously in revolt against Protestantism.” His evidence: “This-appears plainlyin the Instant by his insistence upon works , and by the fact…
Modernity is marked by the reduction of causes to efficient causes, and the elimination of final causation, of teleology or purpose.Final causes are not so easily eliminated, Hart argues ( The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss , 78-9). Our experience is not “an immediate perception of phenomena - appearances,…
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