Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The doctrine of justification is precious among Protestants. And it should be. The fact that God has declared our sins forgiven and that we have a righteous standing in the sight of God united to Christ is comforting and brings great joy. Unfortunately, the biblical teaching on justification is, many…
The Old Testament priests were given a number of seemingly disparate duties. As everyone knows, the priests led the sacrificial worship of Israel; only the priests could sprinkle blood on the altar or within the tabernacle, and only they could approach the altar to turn sacrificial animals into smoke. But…
M issional ecclesiology is all the rage these days, but for many being “missional” means downplaying or even eliminating concern for the “internal” life of the church, particularly its liturgical life. Missional and liturgical, mission and communio , are locked in zero-sum combat. That cannot be right. The liturgy is…
An old friend of mine, now passed into Heaven, started to say this in relationship to his sometimes troubled family, in the last quarter of his life, "I just had to take responsibility for the whole thing..." That was the seed for a new reading of the Gospel for me,…
She departed the port, dressed in her best ceremonial regalia, with tassels and flags fluttering from her mast and rigging. She stood tall, robed in mist, crowned in white, and backlit by the rising sun. There she sat, shimmering and spotless; with a perfect ragtop, and a full tank of…
John the Baptist is presented in the gospels as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise that God would send His messenger to prepare the way for the coming of the glory of the Lord (Is. 40), and the promise to send Elijah before Him to turn the people to…
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Citing Deut 16:9-12 and the Gezer Calendar, K. Lawson Younger says in NIV Application commentary on Ruth, “the time period from the beginning of the barley harvest to the end of the wheat harvest was normally seven weeks, concluding at Pentecost.” Presumably, this was the festival that Boaz was celebrating…
Augustine is sometimes accused of ontologizing the effects of sin. City of God 14.13 seems to support this: “When [Adam] turned toward himself . . . his being became less complete than when he clung to Him Who exists supremely. Thus, to forsake God and to exist in oneself -…
Augustine rebuts Stoic notions of apatheia and eupatheia in Book 14 of the city of God. He says that Christian experience even those emotions that Stoics denounce - distress and pain and desire - and he roots these experiences in the fact that Christians live in the present age “because…
A colleague, Jayson Grieser, pointed me to Paul Cantor’s little book on Hamlet a few months ago, but I have only recently been able to look at it. It’s superb. Cantor argues that the play dramatizes a conflict between the classical heroism revived by the Renaissance and the Christian constraints…
In City of God, 11.16, Augustine observes the reality of marginal utility: “So far as the freedom of judgment is concerned . . . the reason of the thoughtful man is far different from the necessity of one who is in need, or the desire of the pleasure-seeker. For reason…
INTRODUCTION Jesus gives the Twelve authority to heal, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. He does not give them authority to escape persecutors. Persecution is an inevitable part of the mission of the Crucified. THE TEXT “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.…
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