Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my last essay, we saw how consumer culture has gutted the familial category necessary to understand the church. When a consumer visits a church, he expects another service-provider, such as a hospital or a restaurant. He doesn’t understand the role of men in ministry, and thus, not the role…
First time visitors to our church sometimes express their surprise that children, even the youngest, participate with their parents in the entire worship service. Many congregations created an expectation for the parents (and children) of Sunday School or Child Care being available during the entire worship service or during the…
Quantifying the Love of God “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ~ John 3:16 This most beloved verse in all the Bible was spoken by the Savior himself to Nicodemus. As…
While The Lord’s Prayer enjoys wide recognition throughout the Church, its richness and depth may be unrealized due to a lesser familiarity with, what I will argue is, its primary inspiration: the Tabernacle. There, Christ’s intent can rightly be discerned. The Prayer’s methodological correction to the Jews and Gentiles wasn’t…
The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church Last time we saw consumerism, having canalized its attitudes in our culture, shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has eviscerated the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the…
The ignoble Jayber Crow can stir your appetite for the noble. It’s the simplicity of a good ol’ Port William boy that builds the charm of the book. In fact, the elitists in Port William receive the harshest blows and severest outcomes, as they should. But before delving into the…
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Educational advice from John of Salisbury: “Considerable indulgence must be shown . . . to the young, and loquacity should be tolerated for a time so that they may wax eloquent . . . . As students mature, however, this verbosity ought to be curbed.”
Some quotations from Ivan Illich’s book on Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon : Hugh’s life coincided “with the beginning of the epoch of bookishness which is now closing,” which was “a fleeting but very important moment in the history of the alphabet when, after centuries of Christian reading, the page…
In 1921, Frank Harris argued that Shakespeare’s art reveals the man: “As it is the object of a general to win battles, so it is the life-work of the artist to show himself to us, and the completeness with which he reveals his own individuality is perhaps the best measure…
Robert Jenson attempts to expound the attributes of God as explications of the statement “God raised Jesus from the dead by the Spirit.” He objects to the traditional “bipartite classification” systems prevalent in Protestant dogmatics, citing John Gerhard’s distinction between absolute and relative attributes and commending: “This division betrays all…
In his Systematic Theology , Charles Hodge quotes the following from DF Strauss’s Dogmatik : “The ideas of the absolute and of the holy are incompatible. He who holds to the former must give up the latter, since holiness implies relation; and, on the other hand, he who holds fast…
INTRODUCTION These verses are framed by corresponding general exhortations, verses 16 and 23. Both proverbs describe the way to life: Whoever keeps commandments keeps his soul or life (v. 16), and the fear of Yahweh leads to life (v. 23). There is a “what’s more” progression between the two framing…
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