Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In The Meaning of History , Nikolai Berdyaev argues that the ancient Greeks had no concept of history and no philosophy of history because their concept of God and the world did not allow for it. “They conceived the world aesthetically, as a finite and harmonious cosmos. The most representative…
You know how the curtain parts at the beginning of a play, and you see a new scene, with characters and sets and incidents that had remained hidden up til then? Church last week was like that. Except the curtain was made up of all the things I thought were…
Genesis 3 records the terrible day when humanity fell into sin and shalom was violated. This was a moment of cosmic treason, when Adam and Eve violated their relationship with God by rebelling against His command and fell into the severe ignobility we all experience. The entrance of sin wrecked…
One of the most important contributions of twentieth-century Catholic nouvelle théologie , and of Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou in particular, was its rehabilitation of the typological interpretation of the Bible practiced by patristic and medieval theologians. Typological interpretation assumes that events and institutions of the Old Testament present…
The Catholic News Service has reported that Pope Francis has called for the abolition of not only the death penalty, but also of life in prison. In a meeting with representatives of the International Association of Penal Law, the pontiff called for all “Christians and people of good will” to…
Each year, the United Nations designates November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon explains, “Violence against women and girls takes many forms and is widespread throughout the globe. It includes rape, domestic violence, harassment at work, abuse in school, female…
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In a 1989 article in the European Journal of Sociology on the changing conceptions of friendship through history, Allan Silver comments on the relationship between uncertainty and trust: “Uncertainty about others cannot be eliminated on purely experiential grounds. Trust is meaningful precisely because others retain their capacity to act against…
In his recent Inerrancy and the Gospels: A God-Centered Approach to the Challenges of Harmonization , Vern Poythress emphasizes the personalism of the biblical worldview. There’s a Trinitarian root to this point: “Each person of the Trinity has his distinct personal perspective on knowledge. God the Father knows all things…
Isaiah 45 concludes with the declaration, “In Yahweh shall be justified and shall glory all the seed of Israel” (v. 25). The context makes it clear what this justification consists of: To be justified is to be delivered from exile, to be rescued from chains, to be the object of…
Yahweh does what He does to demonstrate His uniqueness, both to Cyrus and to everyone else. From the rising to the setting of the sun, men will know “none besides me, I myself Yahweh, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:6; Heb. ki-‘efes bil’aday ‘aniy yawh v’eyn ‘od ). Virtually…
Yahweh calls on the heavens to drop and the clouds to pour out the rain of righteousness. Justice drops from heaven, just like mercy (ask Portia!). The result is that the earth produces the fruit of salvation and justice (Isaiah 45:8). In a drought, nothing springs up from the earth;…
Psalm 80 is addressed to the “shepherd ( ra’ah ) of Israel,” Yahweh, who leads Joseph like a flock. The Psalm is a lament; instead of bringing the flock of Israel to green pastures, he pastures them with the bread of tears and makes them to drink tears. Worse, though…
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