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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Here’s lectures notes on the first of my lectures on the Trinity at the upcoming Ministerial Conference in Moscow. The next two posts will be notes for my other two lectures. Lecture #1: The Dance of God, the Dance of Life: Perichoresis in Creator and Creature INTRODUCTION Since the patristic…
Silence is often seen as the summit of piety. Barth wisely says: Confronted with the mystery of God, the creature must be silent: not merely for the sake of being silent, but for the sake of hearing. Only to the extent that it attains silence, can it attain to hearing.…
A couple of quotations from Barth (both from Church Dogmatics , II.2, p. 5), not surprising or unusual in the post-Barth theological world, but well said: “We should still not have learned to say ‘God’ correctly (i.e., as understood in the Christian Church and on the basis of Holy Scripture)…
Well, Barth at least agrees that there is a nature/grace dualism implicit in the infralapsarian position. Strikingly, he points to the danger of anthropocentrism in supralapsarianism, arguing that by making the salvation of individual x and the damnation of individual y the primary purpose of the whole show, supras encouraged…
I’m poring over Barth and Berkhouwer on decrees and election, and seem to be making some progress. Try this: The doctrine of the decree is not merely that everything is predetermined. When the decree is formulated this way, it is hard to distinguish from determinism, and the decree has very…
Every tree That sheds autumnal glory In hope of spring Reveals The eternal life Of God
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