Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“We have a God who hides things because He loves to be sought out, chewed out and found out.” As Christians, we are rightly taught that we must not question God’s Word. The problem is that the Scriptures record many things which appear to have been given to us for…
The book of Revelation is a liturgy. John begins “in the Spirit” on the “Lord’s day” (1:10). Jesus appears, and Jesus tells him to record messages to seven churches, words of encouragement and rebuke, like the call to worship and confession at the beginning of a Christian liturgy. In chapter…
In my previous posts, I looked at the theme of creation as it is found in a sequence of psalms devoted to Yahweh’s Kingship (Psalms 93-100). Among other matters, these psalms declare that when the Kingdom of Israel’s God comes, it is the Kingdom of the world’s own Creator .…
The church in Corinth was a pastoral nightmare. Factionalism, sexual immorality, incipient syncretism, using the church as a stage for self-promotion, and denial of the final resurrection were just some of the problems. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he confronts each of these problems directly and in…
The first chapters of the Word of God have a poetic rhythm. This is used to discredit their accuracy as historical narrative, but the truth is that these same rhythms continue far beyond the book of Genesis. In fact, the later texts shed light on the frustratingly succinct account of…
Mr. Martian: What’s that there? Mr. Edison: (Edison holds up a standard, 60 watt lightbulb). It’s a lightbulb. Mr. Martian: A “lightbulb” you say? What exactly is a “lightbulb”? Mr. Edison: A lightbulb is an object used to illuminate a dark area, say a room. It’s made primarily of filament…
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Yahweh speaks with the voice of many waters, and so does Jesus.  That means loud, but it also means that the voice is the source of life (cf. Numbers 20:11; 24:7; Ezekiel 17:5), like the abundant waters in the wilderness. Many waters cannot quench the flame of Love.  That is,…
“Set me as a seal upon your heart,” says the Bride to the Bridegroom. Now the priest wore stones with the names of the tribes “engraven like a seal” on his breastplate (Exodus 28:11, 21) and the name of Yahweh, also “engraven like a seal” on the golden plate on…
Erik Peterson ( Das Buch von den Engeln ) points out that the new song of Revelation 5 is sung by people from every tongue and nation and people.  Thus, “the hymn of the church is the transcending of all national hymns, as the speech of the church is the…
Hegel’s “sublation” seems to be a conceptual vestige of perichoresis. Sublation requires the Trinity: If all is one, nothing other can be absorbed within being destroyed.  If we have sheer differentiation, all is utterly other. Hegel is right: Sublation happens.  Aquinas does absorb Aristotle, so that Aristotle is still recognizably…
INTRODUCTION The Song of Songs is a love poem, but both Jewish and Christian readers have discerned that it’s something more than that.  Ultimately, the Song is nothing less than the gospel. THE TEXT “Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm for love is…
All history, Hegel says, is the death and resurrection of Jesus, the God’s embrace of negativity and death and their sublation in the resurrection.  This movement of incarnation, death, and death-nestled-in-resurrection is, moreover, the pattern of thought.  As Hegel says, “‘God himself is dead,’ it says in a Lutheran hymn,…
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