Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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Constantine says that some created things “possess wonderful properties, and the full apprehension of which is very difficult. Like hot springs. Or “the fruit of the olive-tree and the vine,” which “deserve especial notice; the one for its power of renovating and cheering the soul, the other because it ministers…
Thomas Madden offers a contrarian analysis of American and Roman empire in his recent book, Empires of Trust . Most empires in history, he says, “have sought to build their power in whatever way they can, making war on their neighbors when it seems advantageous and continuing to do so…
In another part of his oration, Constantine analyzes Virgil’s famed Fourth Eclogue, which Christians often took as a pagan prophecy of Christ. Constantine believes that it’s a deliberate prophecy, but one he deliberately obscured for fear of persecution: “these words are spoken plainly and at the same time darkly, by…
Constantine (of all people) provides a neat little analysis of the violent ontology of polytheism is his Good Friday oration, which Eusebius appended to the Life of Constantine : if the dominion of these [created] things, numberless as they are, were in the hands, not of one but of many,…
The First Things web site today posted some of my biblical-theological reflections on missions and culture: http://www.firstthings.com.
Of course Hebrews is written to Hebrews, not to Greeks. But there are suggestive echoes of the proem of the Odyssey in the opening chapters of the letter. The first words of the letter, polymeros kai polytropos , remind me of Homer’s first description of his hero - polymetis ,…
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