Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,” declares the Lord, “they shall say no more, ‘The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.’ And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor…
Elsewhere, I have argued that there is grace in the so-called covenant of works (see, e.g., my colloquium essay, “A Response to ‘The Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons , edited by Calvin Beisner (pages 118-148). It may be equally surprising to find justice…
Years ago, as a layman, I had the privilege of attending a Bible study led by a gifted teacher. His story was interesting: back when he was a student he had been severely sanctioned for affirming that one must repent in order to be saved, that one must trust Jesus…
Believing that God really exists Defining “faith” is sometimes made too complicated. The theologian, Louis Berkhof, for example, distinguishes “faith in general” from “faith in the religious sense and particularly saving faith.” Berkhof’s core definition of saving faith is not so bad. He says that it is “a certain conviction,…
It is generally acknowledged that when Paul wrote letters to churches, he expected his letters to be read in the worship service to the congregation. It is interesting, then, that when Paul wrote letters to a congregation he could feel free to address children and tell them to obey their…
Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is a classic work of ecclesiology. This book is the longest section of the Institutes , showing Calvin’s deep interest in and love for the church. Among its many salutary features is a full scale exposition of those ecclesiastical leaders Calvin…
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Potter again: “Not all gods stayed at home. In the centuries after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia, eastern peoples appear to have been drawn west in greater numbers, possibly because new centers of power such as Alexandria and Pergamon made the Aegean lands far more important than they had…
According to David S. Potter’s superb The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 180-395 (Routledge History of the Ancient World) , there was no such thing as Roman grand strategy. In part this was a limitation of cartographical technology: “Roman surveyors had the ability to draw very detailed maps of small…
Job 2:7: So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job is a king. He is the greatest of the men of the east; later he says that he delivers…
After Jesus finished dictating the letters to the seven churches, the Apostle John looked up and saw a “door standing open in heaven” and heard a trumpet voice call out, “Come up here.” Since Adam was expelled from the garden, humanity had longed to return. Century after century, no one…
It’s hard to stop once you get a good ceremony going, Mary Beard shows in her 2007 The Roman Triumph . She notes that the last actual Roman triumph took place sometime between the fourth and sixth century but that didn’t stop imitators: “Renaissance princelings launched hundreds of triumphal celebrations.…
Thomas Mathews ( The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Princeton Paperbacks) ) claims that since the work of Kantorowicz, Andreas Alfoldi, and Andre Grabar, interpretations of early Christian art have been dominated by the “emperor mystique.” As summarized by Grabar, the theory is that the history…
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