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 spirited reply to Philip Davies' Whose Bible Is It Anyway? , Francis Watson takes aim at Davies “call for a strict separation between theological and academic modes of biblical interpretation” (3). Davies complains that believers study the Bible according to an insider approach (emic), while academic scholarship requires…
Jane Austen “did things with characerisation, with dialogue, with English sentences, that had never been done before,” writes John Mullan in What Matters in Jane Austen? (p. 2). That she wrote novels is not surprising. That she wrote in such utter isolation is more so. That she wrote with such…
According to Kimberly Hope Belcher ( Efficacious Engagement , 77), “Augustine seems to have been the first commentator on baptism to seriously consider whether the rites of initiation he knew, which were used for both adults and children, applied equally well to both.” He concluded that they did apply, and…
Brian Gregor's A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross isn't “a specifically Lutheran anthropology,” but Gregor does think Luther “demands philosophical attention.” Luther influenced Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, and these influenced Ricoeur and Bonhoeffer. Post-Heideggerian Lutheran theology also, of course, bears the marks of Luther's influence (8-9). Gregor's book is…
Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert's Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence is a handbook to help churches give aid to low-income people. It explains how to create a policy and philosophy of benevolence, how to build the church's capacity, and offers training scenarios, questionnaires and lots of lists. It truly…
Derrida is old hat these days, but he's still a thinker worth wrestling with, worthy of better than the dismissal he often gets from some writers. His deconstructive techniques can be put into the service of theology. In his crucial essay, “Plato's Pharmacy” he offers what he describes as a…
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