Essays
In the Bible, the heart is not just where people have emotions. It’s also where they think. In a good translation of Scripture, you will often hear about the thoughts of the heart. It’s a holistic way of talking: it unites thoughts and feelings in a single whole by putting them together in the same place [...]
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). As with many quotations from the later half of the book of Daniel, this verse sounds like it could have been taken straight from the book of Revelation instead. What great resurrection hope this must have provided Old Testament believers! [...]
"Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice." [...]
“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. / You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! / For your dew is a dew of light, / and the earth will give birth to the dead” (Isa. 26:19). This series seeks to demonstrate that Old Testament saints (like those in the New Testament) showed a conscious hope of resurrection—a hope that they received from the pages of Scripture. [...]
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). New Testament believers are blessed with the hope of resurrection, but what of Old Testament saints? Were such blessings theirs? Did they have a conscious hope for the next life as well? According to the New Testament, the answer is yes. [...]
What is a Pietist? I’ve been searching for a good answer to this question since my graduate student days when I was studying this remarkable seventeenth-century movement and its subsequent influence. One common perception I found is that a Pietist is simply a Lutheran version of a Puritan. But then, what is a Puritan? [...]
Ships that fail to reach their destination cause trouble. For six days in March 2021, the container ship Ever Given—more “sideways skyscraper than boat”—got stuck in the Suez Canal, scotched the global movement of goods, and froze nearly $10 billion in trade daily. We know this lesson well [...]
Life is filled with choices. Some are as mundane as paper or plastic, while others are more serious, like the friend who insists, “You’re either with me or against me.” We are told that we must choose between success or happiness, hard work or a social life, science or art, being an extrovert or an introvert. It’s this or that. [...]
“It's official: Truth is dead. Facts are passe.” So declared The Washington Post back in 2016 when they reported on Oxford Dictionary’s decision to select for their international word of the year: “post-truth.” The official definition reads: relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. [...]
Classic Protestants are intrinsically ambivalent about human nature and thus human culture. On one side, we’re haunted by historical shadows. We’re disturbed by the specter of Constantinianism, since both Scripture and history bear witness to the pitfalls of wedding faith with political culture; we’re sensitive to [...]
I have a love/hate relationship with poetry. My appreciation for the literary form swings on a pendulum between “Is there anything more beautiful than the crafting of words?” and “What in the world does this even mean and why did I waste my time reading it?” This is not necessarily due to a deficiency on the part of the poet [...]
The great Christian hope is that we will see God. Jesus assured us that “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). In this age, “we walk by faith, not by sight,” suggesting that sight is the better experience (2 Cor. 5:7–8). Waiting on this side of Christ’s return [...]
In 1556, Jean de Léry sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, the “abyss of water that is the Western Sea.” When he saw giant porpoises, sea turtles, and flying fish—just a few of the marvels and terrors he witnessed—he remembered Psalm 104:25–26: “The sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small. [...]
The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is undoubtedly one of the most famous passages in the entire New Testament. Affectionately called “The Hall of Faith,” this text has endured as one of the most celebrated chapters in this entire letter. [...]
“Lord, don’t you care?!” The Gospels record two occasions when some of Jesus’ closest disciples posed that question to him (Mark 4:38; Luke 10:40). In the book of Job and in the Psalms, others pose the same question to the Lord many times and in different ways. How about you? [...]
