Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Whatever else the 2016 Presidential cycle has accomplished, it has brought the chasm between nationalism and globalism into sharp relief. Many see this divide as the issue of the campaign (Robert Merry) or of the century (Pat Buchanan). It seems to be a choice we have to make. Christians must…
Salvation is a gift. The righteousness of justification (Romans 5:17) and eternal life (Romans 6:23) are gifts freely offered. According to Risto Saarinen ( God and the Gift ), “God is directly called the giver 104 times [in Scripture], of which 42 are in John’s Gospel and John’s Letters. In…
In the last 40 odd years of studying the Bible, I have read more essays and commentaries on Deuteronomy 6:4 than I can recall. I have also more than twice changed my view on what should be the correct translation of Israel’s central confession. What is so complicated? After the…
Satan is currently bound from gathering the nations in kingly rebellion so that Jesus might gather them in priestly unity. Everything which Scripture records for us, no matter how mundane or mysterious, exists as part of a process of growth to maturity. This transformation is achieved through relationships established by…
God’s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church. God called Abraham to bless the Gentiles through him, and one of Israel’s recurring sins was her failure to carry out this mission. Israel was supposed evoke praise from the Gentiles, but instead…
Are you ready for the New Year? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever He takes you this year? Are you read to follow Him into the garden? Are you ready to stay at His side to be arrested, interrogated, tortured, crucified, buried? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever…
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Isaiah 49 is reassurance to Zion that Yahweh has not forgotten her. Her walls are continuously ( tamid ) before Yahweh, like the sacrifices and showbread (v. 16). And Yahweh goes beyond the assurance of His concern to promise that Zion will be surrounded by gathered people, returned exiles and…
The Hebrew of Isaiah 49:17 is beautifully symmetrical. Transliterated, it reads: miharu banayik meharsayik umacharivayik mimmek yetze’u . The endings of the six words form a neat pattern: one - u followed by four words ending with the second person singular pronomial suffix ( k ), and then another -…
The Hebrew word beten frequently means “womb” (Genesis 25:23; Number 5:22; Psalm 22:9-10; 71:6; Jeremiah 1:5). In a few instances, though, the word is used in unusual contexts. When Yahweh offers Ezekiel a scroll to eat, He orders him to eat it with his beten and to fill his “bowels”…
God has no needs. Philo, Seneca, and classic Christian theology agree on that. But I think the explanation differs. Seneca ( On Benefits (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) , bk. 4) explains that “God bestows upon us very many and very great benefits, with no thought of any…
The Christian conviction that Jesus had defeated the powers and brought an end to old rites had major effects on early Christian social engagement, Gary Ferngren implies in his 2009 Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity . “Before the advent of Christianity,” he says, “there was no concept of…
For all its reputation for iconoclasm, modernism, says Robert Alter in Canon and Creativity: Modern Writing and the Authority of Scripture (The Franz Rosenzweig Lecture Series) , is more accurately described as a “paradoxical amalgam of iconoclasm and hypertraditionalism” (p. 8). Alter’s book explores this phenomenon, along with the “double…
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