Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After 9 chapters of genealogy, the Chronicler begins his history with the death of Saul and the rise of David. The latter part of 1 Chronicles 12 describes the assembly of warriors from the twelve tribes to Hebron to celebrate David’s coronation as king. They have a three-day feast, with…
In the introduction we saw that Matthew and Luke are the only gospels which include “fire” in John the Baptist's narrative. If Matthew and Luke are the priestly and prophetic gospels, the inclusion of fire is of great importance. Priests are servants of the altar, working with fire every day.…
The feet of the great statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream cannot be interpreted as a prediction of the states of modern Europe, but the lessons from their failure can certainly be applied . The statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream spoke of God’s ordaining of four empires which would rule in succession throughout…
This past Sunday afternoon, I drove just a few miles west of my neighborhood to visit the corner of Sherman Blvd. and Burleigh St. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Amid a crowd I stood, looking at a huge gas station and multiple vehicles, all completely destroyed. Hundreds of feet of yellow caution…
1 Chronicles 12 is a flashback. The Chronicler has told the story of Saul’s death at the battle of Mount Gilboa. He has described how “all Israel” gathered to David at Hebron to make him king over all Israel (11:1-3). At the beginning of chapter 12, we move back to…
A great story draws you into specific details while delivering an ending that keeps you coming back. It brings you into the minutiae of life in such a way that requires patience, only to deliver a breath of fresh air time and again. The climax of the biblical story comes…
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Alan Kerr ( The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (Library of New Testament Studies) , 71) offers this comment on Jesus’ statement that Nicodemus had to be born of the Spirit before entering the kingdom: “It is almost universally accepted that Spirit here…
In his 1993 Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue (Library of New Testament Studies) (79-82), Craig A. Evans lays out five parallels between the account of Moses’ intercession at Sinai (Exodus 33-34) and the latter part of the Johannine prologue (1:14-18): First, the general…
At the TLS web site , John Gray reviews Vladimir Tismaneanu’s The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century . Among other things, Gray highlights the continuities between Communism and Fascism. Soviet Russia disenfranchised “former people,” a designation that, according to Tismaneanu implied that they…
In a paper delivered at Princeton in 2012, Jennifer Herdt examines internal shifts in Reformed understandings of natural law enabled a merger between Reformed natural law thinking and “the modern natural law enterprise of the secular science of human nature.” The shift is several-fold. Calvin affirmed that human beings have…
Given the prominence of temple Christology in the New Testament, we’d expect to find it developed among the church fathers and medieval theologians. Athanasius develops Christology from this angle (Letter 60). The Arians, he says, “approve the former people [the Jews] for the honor paid by them to the Temple,…
The Economist is handing out year-end awards for wacky science, one of which goes to the team that published a paper on the trajectory of a falling Batman last summer. The Economist summarizes the findings, which are not encouraging for future Batmen: “if Batman jumped off a 150-metre-tall structure he…
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