Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What About Catholics? (continued) Usually, such people are not seeking graven images, but rather their idolatry is of a broader character. They are seeking a home on earth. Scott Hahn’s book is called Rome Sweet Home . This is the essential sin, for there is no home on earth. The…
Reading the earliest Christian apologists is like watching a movie in which the hero has the means to demolish his opponents in his grasp but never realizes it. The apologists come across as men not altogether aware of the radical character of the gospel they defend. In response to charges…
Then [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, ne`arim came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!" When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in…
Further Numerical Items of Interest Umberto Cassuto points out some other numerical factors in Genesis 5. 1 For one thing, he observes that every number in Genesis 5 is a multiple of 5, sometimes with the addition of 7. We have, in essence, made this point already. He also points…
Prostration God has designed the human body in a marvelous way, and Biblical religion is very physical. We believe in the resurrection of the body, against all pagan ideas of the immortality of the soul. We bury our bodies, not burning them. Human beings in their totality, including our bodies,…
Since Revelation is laid out in serieses of sevens, it is worth investigating to see if there is a series of seven after the seven libation-bowls of chapter 16. I believe there is, and it is the burden of this essay to expose it. The series of sevens, or heptamerous…
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An addendum to my post at firstthings.com today: There’s a generational issue that the aging leaders of the religious right needs to be addressed in a serious way. Most of my students and younger colleagues do not identify in any way with the old religious right. They are anti-abortion and…
According to the Chronicler, Hezekiah is a new David. He “did right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his father David had done” (2 Chronicles 29:2). Like David in 1 Chronicles, Hezekiah organizes the priesthood and Levitical choir to reconsecrate the temple (2 Chronicles 29:3-36) and gathers…
Next door at the main First Things site, I offer my reflections on the import of Tuesday’s election: www.firstthings.com.
“John Calvin was no monastic.” Matthew Myer Boulton states the obvious ( Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation, and the Future of Protestant Theology , 28). Calvin is a critic of the monasticism of his time, and even criticizes the withdrawal of monks in earlier, better times. What’s not…
Matthew Myer Boulton argues that the reforms in worship inaugurated by Calvin were intended to establish a worship that “was in the first place a matter of verbal, catechetical, intellectual engagement with God’s word revealed in Scripture and expounded from the pulpit” ( Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation,…
In a review of Richard Sherlock’s Nature’s End: The Theological Meaning of the New Genetics (Religion and Contemporary Culture) in Touchstone , J. Daryl Charles responds to Sherlock’s claim that in both Thomas and Calvin “natural law in any of its forms is ultimately an inadequate moral guide.” The Calvinist…
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