Category: Bible
Ruth’s Prequel to the Christmas Story
Every good story has a good back-story. Ridley Scott made two prequels to his popular Alien franchise. This past year Amazon offered Rings of Power to the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a prequel. The Godfather had The Godfather...
St Paul the Word Sower
“Word sower” deserves reviving. It comes from the Douay-Rheims translation of Acts 17:18: “What is it, that this word sower would say?” The word sower in question is the Apostle Paul, visiting Athens. “Word sower” is a literal rendering of...
Esther and the Theology of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is our most Christian holiday. Just ask the Puritans. They did not give us Thanksgiving as an annual holiday after a great feast to celebrate a year of survival in America and then say, “This was fun, let’s do...
Biblical Nationalism
Several months after the shocking naval victory at Salamis in the fall of 480 BC and Xerxes’ hasty retreat to Asia with his navy, a delegation arrived in Athens. Leading this embassy was Alexander I of Macedon, a longtime friend...
Why We Never Move Past the Gospel of John
David Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Selwyn College. The following interview revolves around Ford’s latest book, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary. The Gospel of John: A Theological...
Ecclesiastes’ Cure for Depression
Twenty years ago, I was depressed. I was 37 years old living in a nice home in Kentucky. Just a couple of months earlier I thought I was set up for the life I had been working so hard for....
This Is My Body Given for You
On the night Christ was betrayed by Judas, Our Lord celebrated the Passover with all of his brothers, including the traitor himself. Other than the disciple Jesus loved, eleven of His chosen men would later abandon him. In light of...
60 Questions for Pro-Choice Christians
For many evangelicals, the leaked draft decision last month felt like the culmination of many prayers, tears, hard conversations, and difficult decisions at the voting polls. Now that Roe has fallen, the most vulnerable will now have a chance to...
Aardvarks and Alphabets
Just 35 miles from my home in northeast Cambodia, there lives an indigenous minority called the Kachok. There are about four thousand Kachok in nine different villages. While they are ethnically related to other tribes in our region, as well...
Revisiting the Sacrifice of Isaac
J. Richard Middleton. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, The Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. 272pp, $26.99. Did Abraham pass the test in Genesis 22? And does it matter for how...