Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…
Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…
At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…
How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…
1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…
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A comment from W.H. Auden’s Dyer’s Hand rings true: “All those who success in life depends neither upon a job which satisfies some specific and unchanging social need, like a farmer’s, nor, like a surgeon’s, upon some craft which he can be taught by others and improve by practice, but…
David Brondos has an important article on Luther’s notion of justification in the Winter 2004 issue of Pro Ecclesia . Brondos distinguishes between analytic conceptions of justification (that justification is the work of Christ by which one becomes righteous) from synthetic views (that justification is a declaration of the sinner’s…
My Body Given For You, Luke 22:1-62 INTRODUCTION Jesus has been in Jerusalem making a big scene in the temple ?Edriving out the money changers, teaching as if it were His own house, debating with the scribes and chief priests. The Jewish leaders, already angry with Jesus, are further provoked…
Here are a few thoughts on the Auburn Avenue controversy, snipped from an intervention I made on a discussion list. The specific issue in question is Steve Wilkins’s claim that all who are baptized receive “every spiritual blessing in Christ.” First, an exegetical point: Who is Paul addressing when he…
Cartoons have always been a bit subversive: We root for the rabbit against the hunter, and the carnivalesque characters are always preferable to the law-and-order types that they mock. The underdog roadrunner always triumphs over the predatory coyote. And so on. Some recent cartoons continue to be quite clever, especially…
Any idea of cooperation with grace rests on a nature/grace dualism. To say that I cooperate with grace implies that I have some sort of independent power of action that is not always already the product of grace. That is, it depends on the assumption that there is some independent…
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