Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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INTRODUCTION 1 Kings 1 moves from ?King David?E(first phrase of v 1) to ?King Solomon?E(vv 49-53). The first chapter is about the transition from one king to another, but the transition is difficult, rather than smooth. THE TEXT ?Now King David was old, advanced in years; and they put covers…
2 Kings 25:27-30 Kings, as we?ve seen, is not only a book about the unfaithfulness of Israel. It is a book about the faithfulness of God. In particular, it is a book about the faithfulness of God to the house of David, a faithfulness demonstrated over and over again in…
Roman Catholics and Protestants have both appealed to Kings to explore the significance of their divisions, and to defend their claims over against each other. For Roman Catholics, Rome is Jerusalem, maintaining the true worship of the temple while Protestants go after golden calves in places like Geneva and Wittenberg.…
Von Balthasar argues that Jesus is the archetypal child, who lives in constant dependence on His Father, who clings to “Abba,” who is constantly filled with thanks and awe toward His Father. And from that he develops a theology of childhood. Here’s one excerpt (taken from Stasiak’s book, mentioned above):…
One of the most stimulating works on infant baptism that I’ve found is Kurt Stasiak’s Return to Grace: A Theology for Infant Baptism . Stasiak is a Roman Catholic theologian who teaches liturgics at St Meinrad School of Theology. The first half of the book is a discussion of the…
INTRODUCTION No area of sacramental theology exposes assumptions concerning sacraments, and indeed concerning the Christian life, like the issue of infant baptism. Modern Christianity is plagued by an overly individualistic outlook, by the notion that religion is exclusively a matter of the heart, by a belief that religion is private,…
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