Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Before considering the details of the Leviticus, we must have before us certain matters that have been established in Genesis and Exodus. These are things that we as Israelites already know when we first hear Moses report what God dictated to him in Leviticus. Adam Let us begin with Adam.…
(continued from issue 142) 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘An adam, 1 when he brings near from you p a Nearbringing 2 to Yahweh, from livestock 3 from the herd and from the flock you p shall bring near your p Nearbringing. 4 2.…
Trying to Deal Honestly with Luke 10.25-37; 18.18-30; and Parallels When Christ enjoins upon the young man the duty of following him (Mt. 19:23), he does not give a counsel, but a command to all in common because no one can have a hope of salvation unless he follows Christ…
Initial Observations: How the Gospel Challenged the Pharisees In another paper , I argued that the “Law-Gospel” hermeneutic, as applied to Luke 10.25-37; 18.18-30, resulted in a fundamental misreading of the text. Thinking of the context of those passages in Luke’s Gospel has given me some further reflections on how…
I recently heard of a new English translation of the Bible being prepared by men concerned to preserve a literal word-for-word rendering of the Hebrew and Greek but also sensitive to ecclesiastical tradition. I wrote to the committee and asked if they were going to fix the traditional translation of…
All Christians struggle with sin. Many times even relatively mature Christians commit sins they thought they had long since left behind and end up struggling anew with sinful habits in thought, word, or deed. Naturally, this means they must rouse themselves to action in putting to death the deeds of…
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John Gray ( Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals , 19) argues that “Among us, science serves two needs: for hope and censorship.” It feeds hope because science is the only institution where progress is evident: “The political projects of the twentieth century have failed, or achieved much…
The bracing premise of John Gray’s Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (xi-xii) is that liberal humanism is grounded in a “superstition” that is “further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world’s religions.” That superstition is a belief in progress, which outside of…
In his 1976 study of Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables, 1620-70 (Historical Publications) , J. Sears McGee uses the law’s “two tables” to distinguish Anglicans from Puritans. Puritans were men of the “first table,” Anglicans of the second. Both worked with the same “palette…
Visser ( Beyond Fate (Massey Lectures) (CBC Massey Lecture) , 43-4) makes the commonplace observation that Christianity dislodged the honor-shame patterns of the ancient world and replaced it with a sin-guilt nexus. Unlike many, Visser views this as a tremendous gain, even a liberation: “In recognizing wrongdoing as sin, we…
In her Beyond Fate (Massey Lectures) (CBC Massey Lecture ) (15-16) , the always-stimulating Margaret Visser describes the cultural achievement of making a “place” at table. For us Westerners, “Each diner sits on an upright, separate chair drawn up to a table on which is laid his or her ‘place.’…
In the twelfth book his Christian Topography , the sixth-century Italian known as Cosmas the Indian Navigator tries to show that biblical history is consistent with the best records of ancient pagans. “Best” means not -Greek. It’s a highly inaccurate, charming, amusing passage: “But the Chaldaeans and the Medes and…
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