Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Job appears in the Bible as a true story and it is regarded as such in other Scripture: As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the…
Thanksgiving is warfare. Gratitude is a weapon. Wield it well. Give thanks for the preparation. The hustle and bustle, the messy kitchen, the endless cleaning, the extra chairs, and stained tablecloths sing the song of hospitality. God desires that we prepare a place for friends and strangers, feasting and laughing,…
We often hear that, along with Leviticus, Ecclesiastes is the “most peculiar book,” lurking in the Bible’s back alley. 1 But it is high time that we retire this old dirge. God has concealed much gold here, therefore much glory is ours if we are careful to read Solomon’s wisdom…
1 Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? 2 Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth? Job 39 We have and we do, Lord God. Spring is calving season.…
For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh. - Exodus 35:2 The instructions for building the tabernacle end with a Sabbath command and the narrative about building begins with a Sabbath command, before…
High in the list of now forgotten sins is simony. It was not always so: the medieval schoolmen believed simony to be the worst of ecclesiastical crimes and waged a centuries long campaign to purge the Church of this financial and spiritual corruption. As the schoolmen robustly defined it, “simony…
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N. T. Wright’s views on Paul and justification will be misconstrued if they are examined outside the context of his views on Israel’s history and Jesus’ role in that history. That is, Wright’s work is of a piece – his historical Jesus studies are essential to a proper understanding of…
To understand EP Sanders’s “revolution” in Pauline studies, it’s helpful to look at Bultmann’s understanding of Paul, against which Sanders and others are explicitly and implicitly reacting. (I’m following the superb summary in Stephen Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul.) Bultmann’s starting point is anthropological. As a creature, man…
In his book, The Reign of Chivalry , Richard Barber gives a very fine summary of the courtly love tradition and the romantic tradition that it produced. I reproduce here only some of the main points of his discussion of the lyric love poetry of the troubadours. 1) Courtly love,…
INTRODUCTION Matthew’s gospel is organized to show that Jesus is the True Israel, reliving Israel’s history faithfully. But Matthew also shows that Jesus is Israel’s God, who is rejected by His own people but triumphs over their rejection. THE TEXT “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son…
Early in the Summa theologiae , Thomas defends the fourfold interpretation of the Old Testament Scripture by saying that the words of Scripture refer univocally to things, and that God providentially uses those things to signify later things. In this, he was anticipated by Hugh of St. Victor. In his…
Roch Kereszty asks why, if “Scriptural formulas are the most accurate and the best suited for expressing christological doctrine,” we need “theological speculation.” He answers that theology exists to clarify and explain the Bible: “Systematic theologians . . . will follow the direction given in the New Testament itself (that…
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