Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
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A t the New Yorker , Blythe Roberson is having fun imagining futuristic updates of Jane Austen's novels. Real-life efforts to update Austen aren't nearly as much fun. Paula Hollingsworth ends her The Spirituality of Jane Austen by summarizing the plots of the novels in the “Jane Austen Project,” a…
P aul writes letters. Letter-writing—or mail electronically composed and delivered—has become so commonplace that we don't immediately grasp the significance of Paul's activity. Noting the Old Testament background will shake us from our privatized assumptions about epistle-writing. There are two main words for “letter” in the Old Testament. The first,…
F ew studies of the Reformation, writes Alexandra Walsham ( The Reformation of the Landscape ), “have considered how it affected attitudes and practices associated with the world of trees, woods, springs, rocky outcrops, caves, mountain peaks, and other striking topographical features” of Britain. Studies of early modern England “have…
R itualism was a major issue in mid-nineteenth-century Anglicanism. Though inspired by the Tractarians, the ritualists went much further in elaborating the Anglican liturgy. As Peter Marsh puts it ( Victorian Church in Decline ), “For over thirty years the High Church clergy, however moderate, had been raising the standards…
J ohn Calvin isn't the first theologian who comes to mind when thinking about either liturgy or art, much less the combination of the two. W. David O. Taylor thinks that's unfortunate, and his recent Theater of God's Glory is an effort to rehabilitate Calvin as a resource for liturgical…
Boyd Hilton writes (in Age of Atonement ) about Evangelical “aetiology of business immorality” that emerges from 19th-century sermons, novels, and pamphlets: Once “fallen,” commercial man becomes a prey to materialism. His business absorbs too much of his life, and colours all his thoughts and actions, leaving no time for…
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