Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
References to the Son of Man coming on the clouds occur five times in the Synoptic Gospels. Three times such expressions appear in the parallel accounts of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:36; Luke 21:27). Then, in parallel accounts of Jesus’ trial before the leaders of Israel, such expressions…
Just what the difference is in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is a question not so easily answered. The distinction is often said to be that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is on the believer, but in the New…
1. Introduction You should think of 1917 at church on Sunday. Why? Let me explain. There's one film every Oscar season which everyone seems to have watched—your parents, your colleagues, even your pastor. This year, it's 1917— Sam Mendes' WW1 epic following two British Tommies on a seemingly impossible quest…
This piece was originally part of the Bowyer response to the Theopolis series surrounding Professor McDermott’s essay, “Rethinking Israel.” For the sake of brevity, it was removed from the initial response, to be published as a standalone piece. As we’ve argued previously , we are strongly supportive of the right…
Richard Bauckham’s groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony , is profoundly insightful, but the message of the book is hampered by the presupposition of Marcan priority. Ironically the place where this assumption perhaps does its most damage is in Bauckham’s discussion of the apostle Matthew…
The Protestant Reformation was defined by certain clarifying disagreements between the medieval Church and those who came to be known as Protestant Reformers. Chief among these was the nature of justification: whether one was justified by works, or by faith and works, or—as Martin Luther contended—by faith alone. Now over…
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Oliver and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan pithily sum up Tertullian’s argument in De corona militis ( From Irenaeus to Grotius , 24): “By concentrating on the particular issue of whether a Christian should wear the military chaplet on ceremonial occasions, it manages to take for granted the more fundamental case against…
Command, Clement of Alexandria wrote, involved “caution, risk taking, and the union of the two,” and these expressed themselves in words, deeds, or word-deeds. Moses was the great model of command, not only to Israel but to the Greeks ( Stromateis , 1.24). Moses’ night march through the sea guided…
In his wise contribution to the Blackwell Companion to Political Theology , RR Reno concludes that Hauerwas’s theology is “a thoroughgoing Christian liberalism” (314). This isn’t a criticism or a charge of inconsistency. Reno knows that Hauerwas “he rejects the liberal ideal of critical detachment. We can never begin by…
Noah Kristula-Green responds to the politicization of the Lego Movie by, well, trying to score political points: “the film does play lip service to political tropes, but what really makes the film work is that it represents the highest form of capitalist expression: it is a commercial.” The film resists…
Putin is watching Ukraine carefully, writes Julia Ioffe , because he knows that what happens in Kiev could be replicated in Moscow: “Putin and the system he built do sweat the small things because Putin sees dissent as a slippery slope. He knows the cold has never stopped a single…
Jesus promises to make the victors in Philadelphia pillars in His temple, and to inscribe a triple name on them. Fill in the blank: “The name of My God, and the name of the ____________ of My God, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new…
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