Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
From time to time, when I’ve lectured on how to read the Bible, I’ve used art-music as one example thereof. When we listen to a simple folk song, we hear the same melody over and over again, but this is not how composers write "high" music. Let me amplify. A…
Sermons are rarely more tiresome than when they strive for relevance. Drawing from the latest headlines transforms the preacher into a one-man MacLaughlin Group, a Crossfire without the cross though perhaps with some of the fire, and leave the congregation thinking, "If I wanted Meet the Press, I could have…
Part One: The Old Testament “Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness, but the abuse of drink is from Satan, the wine is from God, but the drunkard is from the Devil” Increase Mather in Wo to Drunkards (1673). 1. The “wine”…
28. These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the 7th year 3023 Jews. 29. In the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem. 30. In the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4600…
Revelation 21:24 says, concerning the light shining from the New Jerusalem, "and the nations will walk by her light, and the kings of the land will bring their glory into her." Similarly, Revelation 22:2 says, concerning the Tree of Life, that "the leaves of the tree were for the healing…
Jeremiah and the Beginning of Jehoiakim’s Reign Now comes Jeremiah, at the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, with similar words (Jeremiah 26). Harken to God’s law, he said, or else God will destroy the Temple the same way He sent the Philistines to tear down the Tabernacle at Shiloh (Jeremiah 26:6;…
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A few thoughts on the “General Prologue” to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales . 1) The Prologue sets the stage for a multi-layered set of tales. The real-life Chaucer is, of course, the author, but in the Prologue, he introduces a fictional version of himself as narrator: It happened in that season…
In an essay on “Eschatology” in the Blackwell Companion to Political Theology , the late Robert Jenson argues that Christian eschatology is “directly and almost exclusively a discourse about politics.” The coming of the kingdom means that “the eschaton-polity” Israel hoped for, “the universal polity of peace, appeared as a…
The world’s most interesting man, Matthew B. Crawford, offers a brilliant and chilling diagnosis of “How Science Has Been Corrupted” at UnHerd . The hinge of his analysis is the “dissonance between our idealised image of science, on the one hand, and the work ‘science’ is called to do in…
Caryll Houselander begins her Passion of the Infant Christ with a meditation on seeds and sowing. “The countryman is not impatient,” she writes, “when flowers and fruit disappear and winter lingers.” His seed is in the ground, and he is “as conscious of life in winter, when the crust of…
Law, writes Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule ( Common Good Constitutionalism ), is “a reasoned ordering to the common good,” or, in the words of the Roman jurist Ulpian, “the art of goodness and fairness” (1). Public officials “have a duty, and corresponding authority, to promote the common good” (1).…
For centuries, Eucharistic piety has been distorted by ocular metaphors. We long to “see” Jesus at the table, but the bread and wine form a “veil.” Eucharistic desire is the desire to rend the veil of bread to enter into extra-festive spiritual communion. The ocular emphasis of Eucharistic piety pops…
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