Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
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In their essay on the Eucharist in Cultural Reformations , David Aers and Sarah Beckwith notes that “one of the central images in the exhortations to Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer and also in the ‘Homily of the Worthy Reception’ is the image of the heavenly banquet…
In the second volume of his study of the cross in Western art ( The Triumph of the Cross ), Richard Viladesau notes that “the period immediately preceding the Reformation was one in which Christ's passion was treated with graphic emphasis on the violence of the events and on the…
In a contribution to Cultural Reformations , David Aers and Sarah Beckwith explain that “One of the chief reasons why Cranmer and other reformers thought the rejection of transubstantiation was so essential was that it negated the act of repentance and reception. If the body of Christ was e x…
David Aers and Sarah Beckwith argue that Augustine's interpretation of John 6 cannot be understood in a Zwinglian or Wycliffite sense (essay in Cultural Reformations , 153). Augustine does say “Believe and you have eaten,” but Augustine's framework for saying this is corporate and ecclesial. As evidence, they summarize Augustine's…
Theology often lays claim to scientific status, Weber observes, but in doing so does something that no genuine science does: It operates with substantive presuppositions, especially the assumption that the cosmos is meaningful. In “Science as a Vocation,” he writes, “All theology represents an intellectual rationalization of the possession of…
John is carried by the Spirit to a “great and high mountain” (Revelation 21:9-10), where he sees new Jerusalem descend from heaven. It's the last mountain in Bible, in line with Eden, Sinai, Zion, Moriah, Tabor, Olives. The link with Sinai is especially important, but not because this is a…
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