Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The story of Judges 19 and the subsequent chapters are some of the most shocking and appalling accounts in all of Scripture. The callousness of the old host and the Levite, and the monstrous brutality of the men of Gibeah, leaves us feebly scrabbling for words by which to surmount…
David has become king. He has conquered the capital city of Jerusalem. He has brought the ark of Yahweh into the city and placed it in a tent. He has stationed Levites at the tent to offer sacrifices of praise. An anomaly hits him: He has a cedar-paneled palace, and…
In Part 2 of this series we traced what we have of the development of the epiclesis in the liturgy of the Church. In this third and final part we’ll look at the theological implications of this and how we may apply what we’ve learned. As we saw in Part…
In a 2014 piece published in First Things , I offered a "wish list" for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn't cover everything. It doesn't mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism and…
In the first part of this series we examined the meaning of “blessing” in Scripture and its parallels in Jewish liturgical tradition, but did not find anything that we could properly call an epiclesis (an invocation of the Holy Spirit). We did find examples of invocation of Jesus to “come”…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
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No, says Anatolios ( Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine , 232-3 ): “we do not find an extended and focused discussion of the likeness between the unity-in-distinction in the human realm and that in the divine realm as a central theme in Gregory’s theology, certainly not…
Lactantius devotes several sections of the Divine Institutes (6.11-12) to an analysis of Roman benefaction and to a sketch of a Christian alternative. He writes that it is “a great work of justice to protect and defend orphans and widows ho are destitute and stand in need of assistance; and…
In his brilliant Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine) , Khaled Anatolios notes that some recent theologians have criticized the Cappadocian “reduction” of the distinction of divine Persons “to the order of causality” (232). Speaking of Gregory of Nyssa in particular, Anatolios responds: “such criticism is based…
The work of Biblical Horizons has played an inestimable role in the shaping and training of the teachers and students at Geneva Academy. Understanding education as part of God’s plan to mature His people, seeing the Church at the center of God’s mission in the world, being God’s people praying…
Marc Bloch once wrote, “feudal Europe was not all feudalized in the same degree or according to the same rhythm and, above all, . . . it was nowhere feudalized completely” ( Feudal Society ). He added, “No doubt is it the fate of every system of human institutions never…
In her revisionist Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (7-8), Susan Reynolds traces common notions of feudal society, feudalism, feudal system back to sixteenth century legal historians, from where they made their way into Montesquieu and Adam Smith’s historical evolution of political economy: “In smith’s description of feudal government…
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