Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World As I mentioned above, the history of Israel involved several centuries as a church-without-a-culture, and then several centuries as a culture-without-a-city. To be sure, there was an informal culture around the church of the Patriarchs, but the civilization of free farmers…
In the Reformation Tradition we baptize both professing believers and their children. In the case of infants it is now commonly insisted that this is done because the children are already in covenant with God. Baptism is a sign and seal of a previously existing reality. Despite the popularity of…
Concerning Sex & the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer…
In 27.2, the Westminster Confession says that because of the “spiritual relation” between sacraments and the things they represent, “the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.” Applied to baptism, this means that when the Bible says that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6), it…
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Brown makes the interesting observation that the phrase at the end of 1 John 5:8 is not “the three are one” but “the three are into one” (Greek, eis to hen ). Spirit, water, and blood are not quite a united witness but three witnesses tending toward one end, one…
Raymond Brown helpfully observes, “For the Christian the life-giving moment of the Spirit was not simply the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus in the form of a dove, but the Spirit flowing from within Jesus after his death. And the flowing blood, the sign of the sacrificial victim, showed…
Spirit and water are the agents of the first creation. Jesus doesn’t come that way. He doesn’t come by water only. Neither did renewal under the law. Cleansing came by water baths and also by shedding and distributing blood. Neither does the church. It doesn’t grow by water only, but…
John appeals to three witnesses in 1 John 5:6-8: Spirit, water, blood. These are all witnesses at the Exodus - the Spirit-cloud that leads Israel through the wilderness, the water of the sea, the blood of Passover. Among other things, these three witnesses testify that Jesus is the greater Moses,…
An addendum to an earlier post on Rosenstock-Huessy’s essay, “The Metabolism of Science.” Though he sees world, nature, and physis as identical in some ways, he also distinguishes them. We have different experiences of the external world, and there are summarized in the Anglo-Saxon “world,” the Latin “nature,” and the…
1 Chronicles 6:31-38 traces the genealogy of Levite singers backwards from those appointed by David to Jacob. There are some interesting names along the way. Heman the singer’s grandpappy was Samuel son of Elkanah, whom you may remember from 1 Samuel. Further back, Samuel’s great, great . . . .grandpappy…
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