Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1. Come, Ye Thankful People, Come. This hymn by Henry Alford is found in many hymnals, including Cantus Christi . Yet, the last stanza radically contradicts the theological perspective of the historic faith and of the editors of this hymnal. It is a witness to how we tend to bounce…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 7. The Literary Shape of the Covenant As we have seen, there is a succession of covenants in the Bible, each more glorious than the previous, each absorbing and transfiguring…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 6. Covenant Phases in the Bible Thus far we have spoken of only three phases in the history of the one covenant. We must now divide the third phase into…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 5. Priest, King, and Prophet We can begin with the phrase “prophet, priest, and king.” This is the order normally heard from preachers and theologians. But it is not really…
This is a fine hymn by John Mason Neale, based on an ancient Greek church hymn. The opening question is particularly powerful: “Christian, dost thou see them on the holy ground, how the powers of darkness compass thee around?” Yes, the devil strikes in the very church and her worship…
This syrupy piece of marijuana-haze hymnody is found in the hymnals of churches that have substituted sentiment for orthodoxy and worship. Hence you don’t find it in older Presbyterian hymnals, but in the Trinity Hymnal. Nor do you find it in Episcopal and Lutheran hymnals until very recently in some…
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Ian McEwan’s Saturday is from one angle a novelization of Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” which also figures prominently (if improbably) into the plot. The book begins with neurosurgeon Henry Perowne looking out a window early on a February morning on a world where ignorant armies clash by night, and ends with…
I recently came across the work of Daniel Judah Elazar, a political scientist at Temple University who has devoted much of his working life to tracing the impact of biblical ideas of covenant on the development of Western politics. This comes out most fully in a four-volume work on the…
Holiness is separation, or so we are told. Let’s accept what we’re told. How then is God eternally and unchangeably holy? From what is He separated? If we say “the world,” then prior to the world’s existence God was potentially but not really holy. Of course, this can be resolved…
John Alvis suggests that in Hamlet, Shakespeare alligns himself with Machiavelli at least to the extent that he sees Christianity (or certain forms of Christianity) as a comfort to tyrants. Christians, Machiavelli says, are unresistant to tyranny because they have been taught to wait for the justice of God, to…
Despite the distracting use of the opposition of of “authenticity” and “responsibility,” Terry Eagleton has some thoughtful observations on the tragic dilemma in Hamlet ( Shakespeare and Society , 1967). Hamlet’s is a society of “reciprocal human definitions,” that is to say, a man’s identity is mirrored to him by…
Ephesians 4:15-16: Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the…
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