Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World As I mentioned above, the history of Israel involved several centuries as a church-without-a-culture, and then several centuries as a culture-without-a-city. To be sure, there was an informal culture around the church of the Patriarchs, but the civilization of free farmers…
In the Reformation Tradition we baptize both professing believers and their children. In the case of infants it is now commonly insisted that this is done because the children are already in covenant with God. Baptism is a sign and seal of a previously existing reality. Despite the popularity of…
Concerning Sex & the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer…
In 27.2, the Westminster Confession says that because of the “spiritual relation” between sacraments and the things they represent, “the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.” Applied to baptism, this means that when the Bible says that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6), it…
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Mundus reconciliatus Ecclesia (Augustine, Sermon 96). “The world reconciled is the church.”
In his 1987 book on Thomas’s ecclesiology, George Sabra argues that Thomas does not teach that the church is a continuing incarnation. He definitely rejects any notion that the church is deified. If the notion of “continuing incarnation” simply means that the church continues the work of the incarnation, it…
Thomas wrote no treatise on the church, but Yves Congar, among others, insisted that the whole second part of the Summa is about ecclesiology. Thomas is telling a story of exodus and return, and the second part of his treatise is about the return effected by Christ and worked out…
In the Poetics , Aristotle gives a brief description of the character and history of comedy: ” Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type - not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the…
INTRODUCTION In the final chapter of his prophecy, Micah speaks in the first person, as the representative Israelite. In the midst of social chaos, he waits on Yahweh to show His righteousness. Someday, the Lord who treads on Judah’s high places (1:3) will tread her iniquities and cast them into…
In Micah 6:4, Yahweh reminds Judah, “I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” The “send before” reminds us of Yahweh’s promise to send His angel before Israel as they traveled through the wilderness and into the land. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam are human analogues to the Angel of Yahweh.…
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