Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Look at John 1.17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The above quotation is John 1.17 and comes from the New King James Version of the Bible. It is quite similar to the original translation in the old King James…
And the Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. There is nothing faulty in this translation (New American Standard Bible); Jesus was the recipient of the grace of God His Father from whom He is eternally begotten and with…
When Paul wrote to Philemon asking him to forgive his runaway slave, Onesimus, he gave Philemon an interesting perspective on how God used Onesimus’ action to bring about his conversion: For perhaps he was for this reason parted from you for a while, that you should have him back forever,…
Adam’s good works were acceptable to God. He could do them and God would receive them. Our own “good” works, our very best works, require the forgiveness of God and the continual intercession of Jesus Christ due to their impurity. Thus, it is appropriate to describe God’s covenant with Adam…
In Mark’s Gospel we read: “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons’” (3.22). Jesus replied in part, “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of…
A Primer for Church Members on the Nature and Functions of the Body of Christ Introductory Note: I intend this paper to serve as something of a “user’s guide” for church members, though church leaders may also find it valuable in developing vision statements for their local bodies. I have…
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Near the end of his fifth oration, Gregory flies off into an ecstatic review of the Spirit’s work and titles.  It is in some ways standard pneumatology, but the overwhelming rhetorical flood has never been surpassed. “Christ is born; the Spirit is His Forerunner. He is baptized; the Spirit bears…
Gregory’s fifth oration again: Human nature “has a unity which is only conceivable in thought; and the individuals are parted from one another very far indeed, both by time and by dispositions and by power.  For we are not only compound beings, but also contrasted beings, both with one another…
From Gregory’s fifth oration, defending the divinity and consubstantiality of the Spirit: “What was Adam?  A creature of God.  What then was Eve?  A fragment of the creature.  And what was Seth?  The begotten of both.  Does it then seem to you that Creature and Fragment and Begotten are the…
In the second of his “theological orations,” Gregory Nazianzen catalogs the impenetrable mysteries of creation: “How is it,” he asks, “that the earth stands solid and unswerving?  On what is it supported?  What is it that props it up, and on what does that rest?” And then: “For indeed reason…
Cunningham again, arguing that a creation made by a loving Creator cannot be pure nature: “Traditionally, God’s long-term ‘involvement’ with an care for the world has been emphasized through the theological category of grace .  In creating the world, God wills into existence something radically other-than-God; but the world’s ‘otherness’…
In his brilliant, flawed These Three are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology (Challenges in Contemporary Theology) , David Cunningham notes how the doctrine of the Trinity implies retroactive causality: “At first, we might assume that a father precedes his son, both logically and temporally; but this is an illusion.…
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