Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I'm afraid of messing up. Not just of messing up in general, but of messing this up—the big This that is the story that is my life, the story that God is attempting to tell with me as His material. The question casts its shadow over all my decisions. Can…
Jesus’ letter to Pergamum mentions Balaam and Balak (Revelation 2:14), and that is a signal that the whole message is running along the lines of Numbers 22-25. The death of the high priest is a sacrificial moment in the life of Israel. According to the rules of the cities of…
As you come to be joined in marriage today, I want to take a moment to focus on one important dimension of what it means to be married as Christians: that is as those who know Jesus and are being made into His likeness. This is a glorious day, full…
When Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.” Jesus saith unto him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest…
Philosophers have measured mountains, Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings, Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love. The Agonie –…
The third chapter of Luke famously opens with a list of mighty men, seven mighty men, potential heroes of the Mediterranean world. Beginning with Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate, passing on to Herod the Tetrarch and his brothers, and ending with two High Priests, Luke says that the word of…
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Margaret Garber points out that Arden, the name of the forest in As You Like It , is also the maiden name of Shakespeare’s mother, “so it is arguable that some nostalgia for childhood would double the geographical place with a psychological, or at least a remembered, place of ideal…
Rusty Reno’s discussion of nature and grace ( The Ordinary Transformed ) is not so satisfying as Jenson’s. Reno says that theology’s challenge is to explain the real relationship between nature and grace without detaching them or conflating them. Too intimate a relationship “implies a partnership between the ordinary and…
In the second volume of his systematic theology, Robert Jenson summarizes and critiques de Lubac’s theology of nature and grace. He agrees with de Lubac’s conclusion that the supernatural is not owed to nature because “the reverse in the case.” Quoting de lubac: “Nature . . . owes itself to…
Ward quotes Rosalind’s line, “Say a day, without the ever,” and asks, “Did Shakespeare know he had used all five vowels, and with such symmetrical elegance that the first two, appearing three times each, neatly surround the remaining three in correct order within: a-a-a-i-o-u-e-e-e?” He suspects not, but then observes…
AL Rowse counted some 25 references to the Cain and Abel story in Shakespeare’s plays. As You Like It has two - Duke Senior and Frederick, Oliver and Orlando. And there’s Hamlet Sr and Claudius, Edgar and Edmund, Prospero and his usurping brother. Not to mention all the brother-like rivalries…
In his introduction to As You Like It , John Powell Ward free associates on the Forest of Arden, to good effect: “Arden, garden, Garden of Eden (and Adam), ardent, Mary Arden, Arden in Warwickshire, the Ardennes in France - there are many leads into what is suggested. Despite the…
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