Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Having spent time in a number of different kinds of churches/denominations over the years, it has been my observation that in every group there are those with a healthy catholic attitude toward other Christians and also those with a proud and condescending attitude toward others who call themselves Christians. If…
The BHrethren might be interested in this post I wrote on my personal blog which disagrees with John Gerstner’s understanding on the Church . Amid all the discussion of eschatology and hypercalvinism and how the visible church may properly be called the body of Christ, I completely overlooked how Gerstner’s…
How does one become a true judge? There are two trees in the Garden. One must first eat of the Tree of Life, which is purely a tree of grace, a gift. This is a tree that one has done nothing to deserve, and one must eat perhaps for a…
I just put up that first essay (#29 in a series) because I’d made some math goofs in the version mailed out, and I thought some other people would be interested. If this kind of study does not interest you, that’s fine. The Kingdom is a big place. Also, as…
. . . and the whole thing gets muddled. The words we traditionally use to translate Hebrew terms in the “sacrificial” system are confusing and often convey the wrong ideas. If we are going to understand Leviticus and the old world system of sacrifices and offerings, the first thing we…
I’ll start things off here. This year I’m preaching through the Gospel according to St. Luke. Over the past ten years I’ve preached through the Gospel according to St. Mark, St. John, and St. Matthew (in that order) in our morning services at Providence. It’s been eye-opening for me; and…
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The Chronicler’s brief, undetailed account of the reign of Jotham begins and ends formulaically. “Jotham was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem,” we learn in 2 Chronicles 27:1. Seven verses later, in case we have forgotten, the same is repeated: “He…
Isaiah’s name contains a form of the verb yasha , “save,” like the names Joshua and Jesus. Isaiah means “Yah saves.” Isaiah’s name is a clue to one of the key themes of the book. Again and again, Isaiah repeats the ringing declaration that Yahweh is Savior, and each time…
Armen Avanessian's Present Tense: A Poetics is an intricate, illuminating study of the uses of tenses in fiction, and the changes in the uses of the past and present tense in the novels of high modernists. Käte Hamburger's work sets the terms for Avanaessian's discussion. On Hamburger's account, the past…
Nicholas Cook ( Music: A Very Short Introduction ) observes that “Advertisers use music to communicate meanings that would take too long to put into words, or that would carry no conviction in them." To illustrate, he cites a 1992 Prudential commercial that begins with a young man listening to…
On the fourth Sunday of Advent, 1511, a Dominican friar, Antonio de Montesinos, preached a sermon to the Spanish colonists in the main church of Santo Domingo. Bartolome de Las Casas was in the congregation that day, and the rest, as the say, is history. Here’s the central portion of…
In Local Justice , Jon Elster discusses various principles that guide the allocation of resources in local settings. One of the common principles is "absolute equality," which he thinks is defensible on various grounds: "Even when there is no consensus that equality is inherently fair, it is often the only…
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