A new way to see the Book of Revelation

Last updated on: June 10, 2013 at 9:26 pm By Joel J. Miller

From the earliest days of the church Christians have illustrated the scripture. Whether it’s biblical scenes in catacomb art outside Rome or fully illuminated manuscripts like the Rabbula and Lindisfarne Gospels, Christians like to visualize holy stories and characters. Now comes The Book of Revelation, a graphic novel adaptation of John’s Apocalypse executed at the highest artistic level. Enveloped in the arresting artwork is a gripping, new translation of the book, the labor of Frs. Mark Arey and Philemon Sevastiades... Read more

If you could Instagram God, what would he look like?

Last updated on: June 10, 2013 at 7:57 am By Joel J. Miller

Downtown Nashville features a full-size reproduction of the Parthenon, a temple for the Greek goddess Athena. The name comes from Athena’s title Parthenos — “virgin” — and if you head indoors you can see all fourteen yards of the old girl, decked out in gold. No one in the ancient pagan world had any trouble imagining what gods and goddesses looked like. A person could just walk into a local temple and see. Or maybe look at the little idols... Read more

Angels, demons, and C.S. Lewis

Last updated on: June 9, 2013 at 8:02 pm By Joel J. Miller

I’m profoundly honored to be featured in this week’s Breakpoint with John Stonestreet. Cornelius Plantinga leads off with a discussion of the understanding of Satan in our post-Englightment culture. I follow with a similar discussion of angels, keying off my book Lifted by Angels. Listen to the interviews here. If you’re interested in more, you can listen to part of chapter 1 of Lifted by Angels here: Belief in the angelic realm — including the demonic — might seem farfetched... Read more

You’re reading the wrong Book of Esther

Last updated on: January 11, 2014 at 9:23 pm By Joel J. Miller

The Book of Esther occupies a controversial place in the Bible. John Calvin did not include the book in his biblical commentaries and only referenced it once in the Institutes (see 4.12.17). Though he included it in his Bible, Martin Luther was highly ambivalent about it. “I am so great an enemy to . . . Esther, that I wish [it] had not come to us at all, for [it has] too many heathen unnaturalities,” he said in Table Talk... Read more

What a coffin maker can teach us

Last updated on: June 6, 2013 at 10:51 pm By Joel J. Miller

Marcus Daly makes coffins, beautiful, simple, sacred coffins. He found his calling amid tragedy. The first one he ever made was for his own child. Daly says each handcrafted, wood coffin takes him about twenty-five hours to complete. “Mostly what I do is sand,” he says. “I feel like I sand and I sand and I sand. I never feel like it’s finished. But then I guess that’s kind of a fit[ting] thing because that’s probably how we feel at... Read more

Felicity’s rules for living

Last updated on: June 6, 2013 at 9:09 pm By Joel J. Miller

Several months ago as we were preparing to move into our new house, I discovered in my daughter’s room her rules for living. The exact details on their composition are a mystery, but they seem to have been part of some sort of educational program for her little brothers. They’re not bad. I daresay that, if widely implemented, they would make the world a more enjoyable place. Here are Felicity’s Rules: Rules Rule #1 No fighting Rule #2 Be creative... Read more

The secret behind the Bible’s most highlighted verse

Last updated on: January 11, 2014 at 9:23 pm By Joel J. Miller

The current issue of The American Prospect features a short piece on ebooks and social reading. It mentions in passing that the Bible is the Kindle’s most highlighted book and that the most highlighted verse of all is Philippians 4.6: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. It’s no scientific survey, admittedly, but it seems telling that the most underlined passage in the most... Read more

Christ is both our goal and our way

Last updated on: June 5, 2013 at 7:14 am By Joel J. Miller

Christ is everything to the believer. Our lives follow his. This short reflection from Augustine’s City of God shows us that Christ is the goal of human life and the way we walk toward that goal. He’s the point and the path. (I’ve paraphrased it here from Marcus Dods’ translation.) Man is properly understood to be made in God’s image. This is the higher part of his nature that transcends the lowly animals and brings him nearer to the Supreme.... Read more

Why are there dirty stories in the Bible?

Last updated on: January 11, 2014 at 9:23 pm By Joel J. Miller

Anyone who’s read the Bible to children or come at it with some naivety knows it contains many tricky passages. Cough. Judah and Tamar. Cough. A reader who’s spent any time in the text has his or her own list of stories that are risqué, possibly even revolting. Why would the holy authors include these stories in the Bible? Writing one of the very first Christian commentaries on Scripture, Hippolytus of Rome answered the question this way: As the divine... Read more

Why tolerance is a lousy virtue

Last updated on: June 5, 2013 at 7:02 am By Joel J. Miller

Tolerance is a squirrelly virtue. At best it’s a schoolyard thing that only works if everyone agrees to play along. At worst, it’s a bludgeon to — ironically now — knock about people who disagree with you. We all benefit from tolerance when we get the first kind. Elbow room to live and act as you please is nice. When it comes to the practice of faith, it’s even better — particularly if its absence means that you must operate... Read more