Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The story of Judges 19 and the subsequent chapters are some of the most shocking and appalling accounts in all of Scripture. The callousness of the old host and the Levite, and the monstrous brutality of the men of Gibeah, leaves us feebly scrabbling for words by which to surmount…
David has become king. He has conquered the capital city of Jerusalem. He has brought the ark of Yahweh into the city and placed it in a tent. He has stationed Levites at the tent to offer sacrifices of praise. An anomaly hits him: He has a cedar-paneled palace, and…
In Part 2 of this series we traced what we have of the development of the epiclesis in the liturgy of the Church. In this third and final part we’ll look at the theological implications of this and how we may apply what we’ve learned. As we saw in Part…
In a 2014 piece published in First Things , I offered a "wish list" for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn't cover everything. It doesn't mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism and…
In the first part of this series we examined the meaning of “blessing” in Scripture and its parallels in Jewish liturgical tradition, but did not find anything that we could properly call an epiclesis (an invocation of the Holy Spirit). We did find examples of invocation of Jesus to “come”…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
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In his pungent recent book, Liquid Life (Polity, 2005), the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman describes the divergence between the “teaching” and the “taught” classes within the global economy. What he calls the “knowledge classes” are experts at seeking and achieving satisfaction, and have mastered the communications and transportation technologies that…
INTRODUCTION Mary’s role in redemption has been highlighted, and sometimes distorted far beyond biblical warrant. By comparison, Joseph is the neglected member of the “holy family.” Yet, Matthew focuses more attention on Joseph than on Mary, and Joseph is presented as an antitype of the Joseph of Genesis and a…
John J. O’Keefe and R. R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. 156 p. In recent years, theologians have given intensive, and increasingly favorable, attention to patristic and medieval interpretation of the Bible. O’Keefe and Reno, both…
Matthew 1:1: The Book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. As we saw in the sermon this morning, when the Son of God took on human flesh, he took on the human condition in its totality. He took on ancestors and a…
“What time is it?” This may seem a simple and straightforward question. We glance at our watches or at the clock on the wall and give an answer. In fact our answer to this question reveals a great deal about our worldview. We often conceive of time as a commodity,…
In their recent study of patristic interpretation, John O’Keefe and RR Reno point out that Irenaeus borrows his notion of recapitulation from ancient rhetoric: “Recapitulation is an English form of recapitulans, the Latin translation of anakephalaiosis, which means final repetition, summing up, drawing to conclusion. As a term in rhetoric,…
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