Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Evangelistic Message to the Uninformed: 1 Timothy 3.14-16 Even though this is written as a sermon for delivery, and even though it was preached in a homiletics class, I decided I can’t post it as a sermon because it was not truly preached at a place where nonchristians wanted to…
If we only read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we might get the impression that Jesus’ ascension was on resurrection Sunday. Matthew speaks of going to Galilee but he does not put things into a clear time frame. John shows us that Jesus appeared to the disciples eight days…
The most cursory glance at the history of Western literature reveals that it has been deeply influenced by the Bible. Some of the greatest classics of Western literature draw their plots, characters, and ideas largely from Scripture; Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two of the most notable…
Few themes emerge as profoundly and persistently in the streams of biblical narrative as the conflict between light and darkness, and the juxtaposition of humanity with monstrosity. These themes not only weave through the fabric of Scripture, emerging in stories from Genesis to Revelation, but also stitch together the human…
In John Wenham’s work, Easter Enigma , he devotes an entire chapter to Mary Magdalene, which is rephrased and summarized here. 1 One of the interesting things that Wenham said was that Mary Magdalene was the second “most favored woman in the Bible.” 2 He adds, “Yet apart from a…
God made man to live in a larger relational context, and even in high rebellion, man cannot escape his created nature. Instead, that nature takes revenge on rebellious man. Autonomous and alone, the self craves absolution but recognizes no authority that might give it; it thirsts for glory but rejects…
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Mathew Kuefler ( The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society) ) notes that the traditional Roman patria potestas , and the male sexual privileges associated with it, were already waning in the early empire. But Constantine gave…
Radner has these final comments on the hermeneutics of the “holiness code”: “The difference between the sexual laws of Lev. 18 and the laws of clean and unclean flesh in Lev. 11 cannot simply lie in their respective relation to teh category of ceremonial character. The difference lies in the…
Radner finds part of the fulfillment of the figures of Leviticus 18 in the genealoty of Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus’ own genealogy includes sexually illicit acts (Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba) and the various sins (not only sexual, but idolatry and oppression) represented in the genealogy eventually lead to Israel’s…
In dealing with the sexual legislation of Leviticus 18, Ephraim Radner ( Leviticus (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) ) employs a figural/prophetic framework rather than a more traditional ceremonial/moral one. The results are intriguing. The prohibition of adultery, for instance, is “fulfilled by means of confession, self-recognition, forgiveness, and…
Drake notes the unique “democratic” flavor of the churcfh in the fourth century: “Christianity restored to common people an outlet for popular participation which they were denied in imperial politics. Eusebius [of Caesarea’s] awkward letter to his confregation from Nicaea, Constantine’s frequent letters to the Christians of Nicomedia, Alexandria, or…
Xenophon’s Cyrus provides a good illustration of Elias’s theory: “He trained his associates also not to spit or to wipe the nose in public, and not to turn round to look at anything, as being men who wondered at nothing. All this he thought contributed, in some measure, to their…
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