Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. Acts 5:12-13 When Grandma needed healing, her children knew the…
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…
And Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah . . . And Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber . . . and Eber lived thirty-four years and became the father of Peleg . . . and Peleg lived thirty years, and became the…
Of course, the title should be something like, “The Fall of the Angel Who Came to be Satan,” but that and other more accurate titles are too cumbersome. The question is: who is Satan, and when and how did he become “Satan” (Adversary, Accuser) and the “devil” (slanderer)? By my…
In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…
This piece was originally published in 1989. 1. The Blessed Hope "Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Titus 2:13 I was recently asked how I as a postmillennialist would preach on "The Blessed Hope." This is often…
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B oethius defined persona as an “individual substance of a rational nature ( natuae rationalis individua substantia ). This definition is often cited as evidence that medieval Trinitarian theology, deeply influenced by Boethius, did not teach that the Trinitarian “Persons” are persons in the modern sense of the term -…
N estled within several chapters of 1 Chronicles that describe David's wars, 1 Chronicles 18:14–17 explains the purpose of those wars: To establish Yahweh's order of justice in Israel, an order of justice that David himself administers and mediates. Having conquered Philistia, Moab, Ammon, and Edom, David reigns over “all…
What does God give in creation and redemption? He gives us our own existence, and that the gift He gives is Himself. Both are true. Luther captures this latter point in his 1528 “Confession”: “These are the three Persons and the one God, Who has given Himself to us wholly…
I n his Essays in Anthropology , Robert Spaemann observes that “the beginning of modern science was marked by polemics against the concept of nature. The concept of nature is now taken to be anthropomorphic, while the essentially teleological idea of things in the cosmos having ‘movement in themselves' is…
P hilip Gorski's American Covenant examines the American tradition of civil religion or civic republicanism from the Puritans through President Obama. Gorski contrasts this tradition with the two most belligerent contenders in contemporary American politics, religious nationalism and radical secularism. Civil religion differs from radical secularism in its anthropology (communitarian…
K ate Symondson begins her TLS review of recent editions of Joseph Conrad’s letters and his novel Victory with a reminder of FR Leavis's complaint about Conrad's “insistence on inexpressible and incomprehensible mystery.” Symondson writes, “Instead of the Victorian preference for pellucid—almost pedantic—hardened detail, mist shrouds and encircles Conrad's fiction.…
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