Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
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There should be - probably there is - an anthropological study of Western philosophy as a highly rarefied form of dirt avoidance. Plato with his “pure and unadulterated” access to truth; Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas; Kant’s purity of reason. I’m thinking of a history of philosophy that reads Plato…
J.L. Simmons notes that Shakespeare consistently depicts Rome “as a pagan world in which the characters must perforce operate with no reference beyond the Earthly City.” As a result, “all attempts to rise above the restrictions of man and his imperfect society, are tragically affected by the absence of revelation…
Some discarded fragments from a paper that got too long. As early as Xenophon, ingratitude has seen as a cause of sedition, and during the middle ages the social and political context of feudalism strengthened this link. Xenophon wrote, “And they [the Persians] bring one another to trial also charged…
Some discarded fragments from a paper that got too long. As early as Xenophon, ingratitude has seen as a cause of sedition, and during the middle ages the social and political context of feudalism strengthened this link. Xenophon wrote, “And they [the Persians] bring one another to trial also charged…
INTRODUCTION In the first chapters of Ephesians, Paul describes God’s eternal plan for the human race and for the world. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and He has now intervened in the history of death and sin to rescue us, to exalt us…
Bavinck argues that without anthropomorphism, we have only skepticism and agnosticism: “Those . . . who contest our right to use anthropomorphisms, thereby in princiuple deny the possibility that God in fact reveals himself in his creatures, are logically bound to proceed to the denial of creation, and are finally…
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