Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Meanings of Remembrance Both Luke’s account of the upper room (Luke 22:14–23) and Paul’s recounting in 1 Corinthians 11:23–25 record Jesus’ words that the Supper in the distribution of bread: “do this in remembrance of me” (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν). 1 1 Corinthians 11:25 repeats the words in…
Genesis is a story of brotherly violence. Cain kills Abel. Jacob flees from Esau, his brother, to live with Laban, his mother’s brother, and ends up in a conflict with him too. Joseph’s brothers assault him, sell him away as a slave, and fake his death. All of this frames…
America is like a secular Holy Roman Empire. Contrary to dissidents who expect a collapse of the federal government, the implosion of the fiat dollar, or a national divorce into Jesusland and the United States of Canada, America will persist. Whether as a world hegemon or regional superpower, there is…
Many readers of the New Testament will, at some point or other, be troubled by the question of why Jesus’ earthly ministry did not address the Roman occupation. Perhaps as a child in Sunday school you were taught that the Jews were expecting a military deliverer, and that the form…
In a recent tweet , which he later expanded into a Substack post , Aaron Renn wrote about the importance of ‘picking the right ladders to climb’. One of our most critical life decisions, Renn argues, is that of choosing the right ‘status hierarchies’ to which we will commit ourselves;…
The Third Use of the Created Word “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” Those words are reflexive for almost any Anglican. Repeated nine times weekly at least during Lent and Advent if not year round, they are said between 54 and 468 times…
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Carey Ellen Walsh ( Exquisite Desire ) points to the difference between classical responses to desire and the account of desire in the Song of Songs.  Using Odysseus and the Sirens as an illustration, she notes how this scene reveals the Greek instinct that desire “harbors danger by rendering its…
Love is as strong as death.  But no stronger.  It’s a standoff. No, Jenson says: “death does not allow of stalemates.  If love binds lovers even in death’s despite, death is overcome by love.  Nor does the grave allow of partial retrievals; if it yields its prey, then its jealousy…
Barthian that he is, Jenson gets the point of the Song’s “seal on my heart” just right: Jesus’ “death has made us the seal of his identity: he dies ‘for’ us, in identification with us.  Now he is not what he is without us; he did not go into death…
Robert Jenson ( Song Of Songs (Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching) ) notes that Song of Songs 8:6-7 contains “pervading reference to the myths of Israel’s religious milieu: ” Mot can indeed be translated simply ‘death,’ but it is also a proper name, for the Canaanite god…
Jealousy refers to a relentless and exclusive passion and attachment.  For Solomon, it is as hard as the grave.  Once someone goes into the grave, the grave doesn’t let him back up; once it takes hold, it doesn’t let go.  Jealousy is like that.  It is “that aspect of love…
Given the “canon” that Scripture speaks “doubly” of Christ (sometimes divinely, sometimes humanly), it would seem easy for Athanasius to shuffle passages about the Father giving and the Son receiving to the “humanity” side of things.  He doesn’t, and He’s right.  The Son has all that the Father has, and…
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