Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Standing in the narthex at the font, parents joyfully approach with their newborn child. The pastor asks the parents a series of questions that may include their renunciation of the devil and all his works, their faith in God the Father, Son, and Spirit as explained in the Apostles’ Creed,…
And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, with…
Get the Psalm 30 Translation here Psalm 30 is a song for the dedication of "the house." Since it is by David, the house would seem to be his palace in Jerusalem. The psalm has an ABA structure, with the B structure being an exhortation to the saints, and the…
I once asked a ferryboat captain if steering a ferry was any different than driving, say, a big semi truck. He looked at me like I had just asked whether a bowling ball fell when you dropped it. “It’s completely different,” he said. “On the river, you never stay pointing…
The key scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing comes just after the first wedding scene when Claudio tosses Hero aside as a "rotten orange." He has been tricked into thinking that Hero is unfaithful, and that is an affront to his honor. He won't put her away quietly. He…
Medieval Christianity is in the news. That’s exciting for me as I have a PhD in medieval theology and I teach Ancient and Medieval Church History at Covenant Seminary. Thus I have a little “skin in the game,” as the saying goes. Earlier this week our President made some comments…
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Finally getting around to Jorge Gracia’s Theory of Textuality . It’s got a lot of strengths. Gracia recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of various theories of textual meaning, and sensibly tests theories by their ability to explain our actual experience of texts. Postmodern diffusion can’t explain the fact of daily…
Considering the plural pronoun at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, Chrysostom says that it announces a moral and social revolution: “by this He at once takes away hatred, and quells pride, and casts out envy, and brings in the mother of all good things, even charity, and exterminates the…
Athenagoras condemns worship of the creation using a musical analogy ( A Plea for Christians ): “If therefore the world is an instrument in tune, and moving in well-measured time, I adore the Being who gave its harmony, and strikes its notes, and sings the accordant strain, and not the…
Gregory of Nyssa explains in On the Making of Man that the human body is like a musical instrument, designed for reason. This is itself a striking image, but Nyssa expounds on the analogy by looking at the specific contours of the human body. The passage reminds me of Leon…
Clement of Alexandria begins his Exhortation to the Heathen by reviewing various myths about music, and then introduces the gospel as God’s new song. By the time he’s done, he’s told the history of the world musically: “Behold the might of the new song! It has made men out of…
In his study of children’s literature ( Stars, Tigers, and the Shape of Words ), JH Prynne mounts a critique of Saussure designed to show that “the methodology of practical literary criticism habitually contradicts Saussure’s theory of language by assuming that acoustic or graphic properties of the sign do contribute…
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