Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Having spent time in a number of different kinds of churches/denominations over the years, it has been my observation that in every group there are those with a healthy catholic attitude toward other Christians and also those with a proud and condescending attitude toward others who call themselves Christians. If…
The BHrethren might be interested in this post I wrote on my personal blog which disagrees with John Gerstner’s understanding on the Church . Amid all the discussion of eschatology and hypercalvinism and how the visible church may properly be called the body of Christ, I completely overlooked how Gerstner’s…
How does one become a true judge? There are two trees in the Garden. One must first eat of the Tree of Life, which is purely a tree of grace, a gift. This is a tree that one has done nothing to deserve, and one must eat perhaps for a…
I just put up that first essay (#29 in a series) because I’d made some math goofs in the version mailed out, and I thought some other people would be interested. If this kind of study does not interest you, that’s fine. The Kingdom is a big place. Also, as…
. . . and the whole thing gets muddled. The words we traditionally use to translate Hebrew terms in the “sacrificial” system are confusing and often convey the wrong ideas. If we are going to understand Leviticus and the old world system of sacrifices and offerings, the first thing we…
I’ll start things off here. This year I’m preaching through the Gospel according to St. Luke. Over the past ten years I’ve preached through the Gospel according to St. Mark, St. John, and St. Matthew (in that order) in our morning services at Providence. It’s been eye-opening for me; and…
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Christ’s death fulfills the figures of Israel’s sacrificial system ( ST III, 48, 3). It exceeds them in being the sacrifice of human flesh for humanity. But it’s not just reality in relation to figure, but is itself a figure, a “sign for of something to be observed by us.”…
How could Christ’s death be a sacrifice, since “those men who slew Christ did not perform any sacred act but rather wrought a great wrong”? ( ST , III, 48, 3). Christ’s passion is no sacrificium but a maleficium . Thomas answers by stressing the voluntary character of Christ’s death.…
Did Christ effect salvation by way of redemption? Thomas asks ( ST III, 48, 4). It’s a question about salvation as payment . The first objection states that Christ could not have saved by way of redemption because no one buys or buys back ( emit vel redimit ) what…
NT Wright has argued for some time, beginning with The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology , that the “one seed” who is Christ (Galatians 3:16) refers to a corporate reality, the single family of Abraham who are collectively called Christ. He points out that…
In Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age ,Victor Mayer-Schonberger explores the reversal of memory and forgetfulness in the digital age: “Since the beginning of time, for us humans, forgetting has been the norm and remembering the exception. Because of digital technology and global networks, however, this balance…
In his exhaustive study of Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context , David Instone-Brewer notes that “Cruelty and humiliation were . . . recognized as grounds for divorce and are related to emotional neglect in the Mishnah” (107). Both husbands and wives could be charged…
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