Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Our creeds, taking cues from Matthew 28:18-20 and other biblical texts, speak of the order of the Trinity as “Father, Son, Spirit.” This order is evident in the order of redemption as well: the Father sends the Son, who ascends to heaven to receive and send the Spirit. Luke 1,…
The category of “relation” has long been central to Trinitarian theology, [1] but in recent theology it has become a transcendental, as many theologians have argued that relationality is the leading feature not only of divine life but of created life. [2] Human beings made in the image of the…
Listen to Trinity House President Peter Leithart discuss his article on the End of Protestantism with LCMS pastor Todd Wilken at Issues, Etc .
One of the keys to understanding the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13) is to understand the time frame. Jesus is speaking in pictures and symbols about some period of history, but which? What’s the beginning, and what’s the end of the parable? Is Jesus talking about what…
Shakespeare wrote two tetrologies of English history, patriotically celebrating the Tudor monarchy by recounting its chaotic prehistory. Read in chronological order, Shakespeare’s English histories trace the depressing collapse of medieval politics, from the ineffectual but dignified medieval kingdom of Richard II, through the usurpation of Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV,…
The Heart of Liturgy What we call sacrament, the food-aspect of worship, is essential here. Biblically, sanctuary worship, or worship in the heavenlies, is always a “marriage supper,” always sacramental. The Papal Church made the Eucharist into a private act largely separated from the community of the church. Protestant churches…
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Eusebius of Nicomedia, ally of Arius, denied that we can infer anything about God from what has been created.  On one hand “there is God” while on the other “things created by free will.”  The Word is also a creature of the free will of God.  This free will is…
Love is “as strong as the grave” and ardor “as hard as Sheol.”  Both descriptions are arresting because they attribute a kind of violence to love. “Strong” describes the driving wind of the exodus (Exodus 14:21), the raging waters of the sea that swallowed up Pharaoh (Nehemiah 9:11).  It describes…
“Put me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm,” says the Bride in the Song of Songs (8:6). Seals mark something with the name of the owner.  A letter is sealed as proof of its author (1 Kings 21:8).  The high priest’s golden plate is…
Nature and grace has been a key theological problem at least since the middle ages.  But the distinction is often misplaced.  As used in Athanasius, for example, the terms refer not to two different realms within the creation, or two different sorts of capacities of human nature. Rather, nature and…
Late medieval theologians were divided, we’re told, between intellectualists and voluntarists.  The first took God’s intellect to be “prior” to His will, and believed His will conforms to His reason.  The latter put the will in the place of “priority” and said that God’s intellect is as it is because…
Dionysus said that creation is the overflow of the superabundant love of God.  That’s true: Many waters cannot quench Yahweh’s fiery love.  That love is the flame of the Spirit, the uncreated Flash that flickers over the formless earth and is not put out but instead moves water here and…
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