Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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At His ascension, Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, was exalted into heavenly glory where John saw Him “having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.” At Pentecost, which we celebrate in a little over a week, Jesus poured…
The meaning of the word “grace” has been a central question in the Federal Vision discussions. On the anti-FV side, it’s often said that “grace” means not only “unmerited favor,” but “favor shown in the face of demerit.” Pro-FV types point out that the Bible uses “grace” and equivalents in…
When in distress or confusion, literate medieval Christians would sometimes let the Bible drop open, and took guidance and comfort the first passage their eye alighted on. This could be superstitious, of course. But it could also come from a deeply genuine faith. Sometimes, we don’t need to hear specific,…
From a sermon by John Donne: “God made this whole world in such an uniformity, such a correspondency, such a concinnity of parts that it was an instrument, perfectly in tune: we may say, the trebles, the highest strings, were disordered first; the best understandings, angels and men, put this…
Johannes Kepler wrote in 1619: “the movements of the heavens are nothing except a certain everlasting polyphony (intelligible, not audible) with dissonant tunings, like certain syncopations or cadences (wherewith men imitate these natural dissonances), which tends towards fixed and prescribed clauses - the single clauses having six terms (like voices)…
Barth offers a challenging critique of the covenant of works. Let me summarize three points, briefly. First, Barth points out that the covenant of works sets law and works as the framework for the entire account of redemptive history and God’s dealings with man. The work of Jesus is understood…
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