Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Bible, fatness is such a blessing, that it is especially hard to understand why wicked men are permitted to enjoy such a state. It requires a theodicy and faith in God. Thus: “For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek . They are…
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The allusion to the Exodus story is contained in the first words of Deuteronomy 14:1 — “ye are the sons of Yahweh your God” — as well as in 14:2 in the use of the technical term translated “treasured possession,” “His own possession,” “peculiar people,” “precious people,” and so forth.…
I have argued that Deuteronomy 14:1-21 is an independent literary unit that applies the Third Word to the lives of Israelites from the time of Moses and Joshua. In this short pericope, Moses suggests broad and deep meaning by means of literary allusion to the stories of the creation and…
In his recently republished The New Creation , the late, delightful Herbert McCabe defends the priesthood of the plebs as roundly as anyone could want. Citing Hebrews, he claims that "there is an essential difference between the Christian community and the community of the Old Law, or any other religious…
Augustine famously prayed, “Our hearts our restless until they rest in You.” True indeed. Being creatures, we inherently sense our ontological poverty—our innate condition of dependence—and are compelled to find a sense of security. And it is also true—as Augustine’s own narrative painfully illustrates—that one of the things we most…
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A while back I posted a quotation that I said was from Tertullian: “You can’t serve God and the Emperor.” The more I’ve read of Tertullian the more suspicious I became about the authenticity of the quotation. I checked with David Ivan Rankin, author of a book on Tertullian and…
Warren Carter (in Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire ) writes, “Not only is the imperial world violent and exploitative, under rulers opposed to and condemned by God, but the Empire is also under the power of the devil and caught up in the continuing struggle between the devil…
University of Illinois history professor Paul Schroeder is worried about the sloppiness involved in calling America an “empire.” America is said to be an empire “simply by being the world’s only superpower, by virtue of its military supremacy, economic power, global influence, technological and scientific prowess, and world-wide alliances. The…
Jon L. Berquist (in Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire ) claims that during the Persian period, Israel devleoped prayer and observance of Sabbath as anti-imperial practices. Daniel’s prayers “resist the law of the king and the rule of the empire.” Sabbath too is anti-imperial: “Sabbath was always construed…
INTRODUCTION Jesus’ lawsuit against the scribes and Pharisees focuses on their failures of leadership (vv. 13-15), their neglect of the important things in the law (vv. 16-24), and their concentration on external show rather than internal purity (vv. 25-28). Of course, these diseases of the soul are not confined to…
Was Jesus condemning the use of all terms of address for religious leaders when He told His disciples not to call anyone Rabbi, Father, or Instructor? Several possible interpretations are absurd on the face of it. Jesus could not have been condemning the use of the specific terms, but leaving…
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