Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World As I mentioned above, the history of Israel involved several centuries as a church-without-a-culture, and then several centuries as a culture-without-a-city. To be sure, there was an informal culture around the church of the Patriarchs, but the civilization of free farmers…
In the Reformation Tradition we baptize both professing believers and their children. In the case of infants it is now commonly insisted that this is done because the children are already in covenant with God. Baptism is a sign and seal of a previously existing reality. Despite the popularity of…
Concerning Sex & the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer…
In 27.2, the Westminster Confession says that because of the “spiritual relation” between sacraments and the things they represent, “the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.” Applied to baptism, this means that when the Bible says that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6), it…
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Critics say that Austen’s work is too restricted. But, as Julia Prewitt Brown says, if this is true, it’s hardly something that Austen would have been unaware of: “we must assume that Jane Austen was highly attuned to the unheroic implications of her subject from the beginning of her career.”…
In “What’s Wrong With the World,” Chesterton commented on the differences between eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction. Essentially, the eighteenth century was from Mars, the nineteenth from Venus. Austen developed her tastes and sensibilities in the eighteenth century, unfortunately often read as one from the nineteenth. “The Novel of the…
Kipling was a Janeite, writing not only a short story about British soldiers forming a secret Janeite society in the trenches but also several poems. Here is one called “Jane’s Marriage.” JANE went to Paradise: That was only fair. Good Sir Walter met her first, And led her up the…
INTRODUCTION Jesus ends the central teaching section of the sermon on the mount with warnings against hypocritical judgment and trusting in power. He again assures us of our Father’s kindness. THE TEXT “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and…
Anselm compared the Trinity to the Nile. Water arises from a spring, travels as a river, and empties into the lake. As Dennis Ngien summarizes, “The spring is not the river nor is the lake; the lake is not the spring nor is the river. Yet the spring is the…
Richard poses a dilemma to unitarians: “if we say that in true Divinity there exists only one person, just as there is only one substance, then without doubt according to this He will not have anyone with whom He could share that infinite abundance of His fullness.” This lack might…
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