Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my last essay, we saw how consumer culture has gutted the familial category necessary to understand the church. When a consumer visits a church, he expects another service-provider, such as a hospital or a restaurant. He doesn’t understand the role of men in ministry, and thus, not the role…
First time visitors to our church sometimes express their surprise that children, even the youngest, participate with their parents in the entire worship service. Many congregations created an expectation for the parents (and children) of Sunday School or Child Care being available during the entire worship service or during the…
Quantifying the Love of God “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ~ John 3:16 This most beloved verse in all the Bible was spoken by the Savior himself to Nicodemus. As…
While The Lord’s Prayer enjoys wide recognition throughout the Church, its richness and depth may be unrealized due to a lesser familiarity with, what I will argue is, its primary inspiration: the Tabernacle. There, Christ’s intent can rightly be discerned. The Prayer’s methodological correction to the Jews and Gentiles wasn’t…
The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church Last time we saw consumerism, having canalized its attitudes in our culture, shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has eviscerated the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the…
The ignoble Jayber Crow can stir your appetite for the noble. It’s the simplicity of a good ol’ Port William boy that builds the charm of the book. In fact, the elitists in Port William receive the harshest blows and severest outcomes, as they should. But before delving into the…
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Yesterday, I summed up an article by Phillip Gray arguing that Yoder and Hauerwas end up Donatist, and also fail to account for the history of the church since they assume that the true church is pacifist. Yoder, though, isn’t as perfectionist as that. In When War Is Unjust ,…
Constantine’s legislation can be brutal and his rhetoric scathing. Not infrequently, though, the invective and brutality are directed at the powerful in defense of the weak. He decreed that the hands of greedy civil servants and judges would be removed, but what’s most interesting is the crime that provokes this…
INTRODUCTION Many of the proverbs in chapter 26 share the basic form of a simile. Sometimes, as in verse 1, the simile is explicit in the Hebrew text (“like snow in summer” is a literal translation); at other times, the simile is not explicit in Hebrew but is implied in…
Phillip Gray scores some points against Yoder and Hauerwas in a 2008 article in Politics and Religion . He suggests, for example, that the category of “Constantinian” is too clunky to capture the differences among Christian thinkers. Various positions on church and state existed in the early church, including “Tertullian/Donatist…
Some thoughts after a stimulating discussion of Ephesians 5 with my colleague Toby Sumpter. Toby pointed out that the description of marital life in Ephesians includes a number of sacrificial terms: Husbands are to imitate the Christ who “gave Himself,” who “washes” His bride, who presents her without spot or…
In an account of life under German communism, pastor Johannel Hamel noted the truth of Paul’s promise of a “way of escape”: “Time and again God creates loopholes, so to speak, open space in the midst of closed systems of unbelief and hatred of God. Hence the possibility is offered…
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