Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…
Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…
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In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…
Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…
Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…
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Teaching and learning never take place in no-place. They are always in an environment. The issue is always which environment and whether it is coherent with what is taught or at cross-purposes with content. Attention to the teaching environment may sound trendily modern, but it's ancient wisdom. Deuteronomy 6 records…
“The dead do not praise Yahweh, nor do any who do down into silence” (Psalm 115:17). It's a refrain in the Psalms: Death marks the end of the life of praise. The dead cannot give thanks to God. Sheol isn't just dark; it's silent. But then Revelation comes along and…
RW Southern ( Making of the Middle Ages ) sees a commonality between the romances of of the high middle ages and the theological and spiritual movements of the 11th-12th centuries. It's a shift from an epic mentality to the thought-world of romance. Southern argues that this movement is evident…
Prophets always initiate new covenants. They end one set of covenantal arrangements and bring in new ones. They are the hinges of history. Noah is a prophet who becomes an Adam in a new creation covenant. Abraham is the first man called a prophet, and is the recipient of covenant…
For medievals, allegory wasn’t simply a way of dealing with texts or a method of writing. It was science, a mode of understanding of the world as a whole. The world was a forest of symbols and allegories from which moral and theological lessons might be drawn. The great medieval…
In his 2014 study of The Royalist Revolution , Eric Nelson presents the counter-intuitive case that the American revolutionaries were not revolting against monarchy but against a legislature: “It was, indeed, a rebellion in favor of royal power” (2). Nelson elaborates: “Colonial whigs who had long been ‘slumbering under the…
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