Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
10. Do not slander [tattle on] a slave to his master, Lest he curse [denounce] you and you be found guilty. The Sojourner of Proverbs 30 is a humble man. He makes this clear in verses 2-4, where he says that he is stupider than anyone else on earth, but…
In retrospect and at first glance, many of the issues that have plagued and divided the Church seem incredibly trivial. The Quartodecimians were branded as heretics for celebrating Easter on 14 Nisan. One of the issues that divided the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 was the kind of bread…
The gifts of the wise men have been commonly interpreted as royal gifts to the infant King of the Jews. Each of the three gifts is, indeed, connected with kings and kingship in Scripture. The Lord’s anointed is pictured wearing a crown of gold in Psalm 21:3, and the gold…
The Church is not in good shape. Nearly every week we hear about another prominent Christian leader who has fallen into scandalous sin. Many shepherds feed their flocks a diet of baby food, if not outright poison. Few Churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper regularly, and few Christians appreciate its importance.…
Two things I asked of Thee, Do not refuse me before I die: Keep deception and words of falsehood far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches, Feed me with the food that it my portion, Lest I be full and deny Thee, And say, "Who is the LORD?"…
During the Middle Ages, Joseph, the husband of Mary, was the butt of many jokes. Medieval theater and art often depicted him as something of a buffoon, decidedly marginal to the gospel story. In part, this was the unfortunate obverse of the exaltation of Mary; any man would suffer by…
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In a 2005 article, Daniel Van Slyke explores the use of sacramentum in non-Christian writers from the ancient world. He reiterates the common observation that the term is most often used in military contexts to describe the engagement of soldiers to military service. Livy, for instance, writes that during a…
John Milbank is no nominalist, yet in Beyond Secular Order he insists that the nominalists raised questions that could not simply be answered by a return to Thomas. He points to four questions: Do creatures stand “outside” God in any sense? Does analogy violate the law of non-contradiction (2 things…
My little post on Gender Arianism created some buzz. Some of the responses missed my argument. But that was partly my fault for making the argument so briefly and (perhaps) opaquely. Here's what I hope is a somewhat clearer statement of the argument. In Deep Comedy , I argued that…
It is widely believed that if the world is a causally closed system, then God cannot be involved in the world. He cannot introduce new information. William Dembski ( Being As Communion ) disputes the conclusion. He concedes that “causal closure in a deterministic universe precludes what may be called…
Arians say that the Son isn't eternal God, but a high-level creature. There is a twofold assumption behind Arianism: First, that the Absolute must be un-related. A related Absolute becomes relative to the one to whom it is related. Trinitarian theology rejected this premise and followed Scripture in affirming an…
In his Beginnings of Judaism , Shaye Cohen devotes a chapter to ancient usages of the meaning of the term ioudaizein . It appears only once in extant classical sources, once in the LXX of Esther, once in Paul, two times in Josephus. Most of the ancient uses are from…
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