Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Protestant-Catholic relationship has hardly been an untroubled one. And yet, the possibilities for various layers of reconciliation are better then at any time since the original schism 500 years ago. One of the symbols for the church that is used in Scripture is the church as a household (Ephesians…
Despite the layers of wiping, covering, and ransoming during the Day of Recoverings, true unity still has not been achieved. Divorce is still possible; God still might leave his people. Thus the Day of Recoverings must be repeated every year. The perpetual expression of unity between God and man in…
The events of Leviticus 16 are commonly known as “The Day of Atonement,” from the Hebrew phrase yom hakippurim, in Leviticus 23:27. However, it would be more accurate to say, “The Day of Atonements,” [i] since the word is plural. The plurality primarily relates to 16:33, which states five different…
Mary Douglas, against the common notion that primitive religious rituals were illogical and random asserts, “The analysis of ritual symbolism cannot begin until we recognize ritual as an attempt to create and maintain a particular culture … Any culture is a series of structures which comprise social forms, values, cosmology,…
Jesus holds seven stars. They are the angels of the seven churches (Revelation 1:20). For ancient readers and hearers, "seven stars" would evoke a number of associations - the seven planets, the seven stars of Ursa Major, and the seven stars that make up the Pleiades. The last makes a…
When he first arrives in Harran, at Paddan-Aram, the home of Laban his uncle, Jacob sees a well. Wells are mentioned frequently in Genesis. Twice Hagar finds a well in the wilderness (Genesis 16:14; 21:19). Philistines seize Abraham’s well (21:22-34), and Abraham’s chief servant finds a wife for Isaac at…
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Stott notes that 1 John 4:19 indicates that the church’s great characteristic is love, not fear. That is, it should be. Is it? Hardly. Read the next piece of direct mail you get from a Christian advocacy group. Look at the listings in a Christian book catalogue or bookstore. Analyze…
Perfect love casts out fear, John says. But the Bible repeatedly exhorts us to fear God. There’s fear, then there’s fear. How do we tell the difference? The difference is in the direction our fear moves us. Adam feared God, and hid in the garden. Wrong fear drives us away…
Post-Kantian thought cannot make room for undistorted revelation of God in history. History, creation, is necessarily a distorting medium. Is this just a form of modalism? Doesn’t this just create an unbridgeable modalist gap between God-in-Himself and God-as-revealed? Isn’t this just saying that God is not what He appears to…
Time was when you could despise the body and love God, or despise God and love the body. One could be an ascetic or a hedonist. Then God got Himself a body. Despite efforts to retain this choice (Nietzsche, flagellants), the incarnation made the ancient choice of ascetic or hedonist…
Time was when you could despise the body and love God, or despise God and love the body. One could be an ascetic or a hedonist. Then God got Himself a body. Despite efforts to retain this choice (Nietzsche, flagellants), the incarnation made the ancient choice of ascetic or hedonist…
Shaftesbury recognized the stark difference between his own rational Deity and the vulgar bodily and crucifiable Christ. Francis Hutcheson, building on Shaftesbury, tried to conflate the two. Hutcheson was a Christian, a Presbyterian professor of moral theology. Shaftesbury loathed Christ. But which of the two was the better friend of…
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