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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In an 1817 letter, Wordsworth complained to Daniel Stuart, “I see clearly that the principal ties which kept the different classes of society in a vital and harmonious dependence upon each other have, within these thirty years, either been greatly impaired or wholly dissolved. Everything has been put up to…
If Repton created the scenery that resonated with Romantics, William Gilpin was the one who put the Lake Country on the map. Travel writer and theorist of the picturesque, Gilpin was the writer most responsible for the 18th-century enthusiasm for scenic tourism. He was also the most influential of those…
A mania for “improvements” gripped the upwardly mobile land-owning classes of the 18th century. By the end of the century, the landscape styles of Lancelot “Capability” Brown were in decline. Richard Payne Knight put the objections to Brownian style in poetic form in his 1794 The Landscape , launching the…
INTRODUCTION Most of the Beatitudes are in the third person, but in verses 11-12 Jesus addresses the people directly: “Blessed are you.” That third-person address continues into verses 13-16. Jesus is addressing the same group. The people who fulfill Israel’s calling to be salt and light are the persecuted. THE…
1 Corinthians 10:16: Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? We drink here the cup of blessing. What blessings are contained in that cup? All the blessings that Jesus promises to his disciples are here. This is the feast of the…
In a 1927 article in JBL , one C. C. McCown examines the Beatitudes in the light of ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hebrew ideals of kingship. There is a consensus that a just king will bring benefits to the poor. The rich benefit in any case, especially with a corrupt…
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