Peter J. Leithart

One of God’s great acts of grace is to reveal His Name. The gods of the nations often had secret names, known only to priests and used only for occult spells. The gods hid to shield themselves from the demands of needy humans. Yahweh doesn’t hide His Name, doesn’t reserve it to a . . . . Continue Reading »

After quoting extensively from Isaac Watts’s nationalistic renditions of the Psalms (Psalm 47 is made to say “The British islands are the Lord’s, / There Abraham’s God is known”), Willie James Jennings ( The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race ) . . . . Continue Reading »

In the first wasf of the bride in Song of Songs 4, the bride is seen behind a veil. Her eyes are like doves “behind your veil” (v. 1), her temples like pomegranate “behind your veil” (v. 3; cf. 6:7). There is no veil in the second extended wasf in 7:1-9. And the lover can . . . . Continue Reading »

Paul Griffiths is always wise: “religious reading requires the establishment of a particular set of relations between the reader and what is read. These are principally relations of reverence, delight, awe, and wonder, relations that, once established, lead to . . . close, repetitive kinds of . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter warms himself at the fire in the High Priest’s courtyard (Mark 14:54; John 18:18). In only one passage of the Old Testament does anyone warm himself by a fire - in Isaiah 44:15-16. In Isaiah the fire is fueled by the wood left over from carving an idol. Peter joins an idolatrous band . . . . Continue Reading »

Revelation uses the word “soul” ( psuche ) seven times (6:9; 8:9; 12:11; 16:3; 18:13, 14; 20:4). (Two moose just walked past my library window . . . .) The “seven” is suggestive of Genesis 1, and the other sevens of Revelation. Whether or not we can match up the seven uses . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus threatens to vomit the lukewarm from His mouth (Revelation 3:16). That picks up on Old Testament descriptions of the land comiting out the inhabitants. But it also reminds us of the fish that vomited Jonah out onto dry land. That is a “return from exile” image: Jonah, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus threatens to come to the church at Sardis “like a thief” (Revelation 3:3), and later warns the unprepared in Babylon that He is coming liek a thief (16:15). The latter passage indicates what Jesus is coming for: “Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his garments, lest he . . . . Continue Reading »

Before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed in the garden (Genesis 2:25). After the fall, they saw their nakedness (3:7), and their behavior manifests shame, even though the word is not used. In the LXX, the two words “naked” and some form of “shame” are used . . . . Continue Reading »

The church in Laodicea is wretched without knowing it (Revelation 3:17). The only other use of the word “wretched” in the New Testament is in Romans 7, where Paul laments after describing his divided existence under the law, that he is a “wretched” man longing for release. . . . . Continue Reading »