Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Misunderstanding “Galatianism” has caused several problems in the Reformed church. Because circumcision is at issue in the Galatian epistle, some have fallen into thinking that ritual per se, rather than anything uniquely Mosaic or Jewish, is the object of Paul’s critique. Likewise, his polemic against “works of the law” is…
Many texts in the NT become more perspicuous if we keep in mind the possibility — and indeed ubiquity — of Gentile God-fearers in the Old Covenant. After the special covenant with Israel is set up, Gentiles are not altogether excluded from the hope of salvation. Israel’s special status in…
I was once trying to get a sermon out of Ephesians 1.12-14 and it seemed obvious that I should look for two parallel statements both ending with the phrase, “to the praise of his glory.” Paul here begins talking about two groups of people (“you” and “we”), and he later…
WHY A DENOMINATION WITH SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN ROOTS SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE “NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL” In my denomination, the PCA, we are continually haunted by the sins of our racist Southern past. It has become an annual rite at General Assembly for the issue to be addressed one way or…
Recent debates over whether or not, “justification is central” to Paul’s theology have reminded me of a sermon I once heard by a Presbyterian seminary student. This African American student challenged his audience on the sin of racism and the ways it might manifest itself among us. Like any good…
In Charles Hodge’s 1853 article, “Idea of the Church,” his stated aim is to analyze the idea of the Church proposed in the Apostles’ Creed, in which, “the Church is declared to be “the Communion of the Saints.” He writes: The conception of the Church as the communion of saints…
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In the preface to Receptive Ecumenism , Paul Murray describes the three “voices” of the collection of essays in these terms: “(1) the dreaming of dreams; (2) the testing of such dreams for their viability; and (3) the discerning together of what might either hinder or promote their embodied ecclesial…
In a series of studies, Michael Tomasello and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology have attempted to isolate what makes human cognition different from that of higher primates. Through a series of studies, they concluded that the key difference is what they call “shared intentionality,” the “we”…
After the two witnesses, the seventh angel blows the seventh trumpet, and loud voices of praise break out in heaven (Revelation 11:15). We’re back in heaven, and the twenty-four elders prostrate themselves before the Lord, the pantokrator , and praise Him because the kingdom of this world ( tou kosmou…
Solomon’s throne had six steps (1 Kings 10), with two lions flanking each step. That means 12 lions. Twelve lions are twelve tribes. But not all the tribes are leonine. Look back at Genesis 49, and you’ll find a donkey tribe (Issachar), a serpent tribe (Dan), a doe tribe (Naphtali),…
Richard Ayoade’s 2013 The Double , based on a Dostoevsky novella, is a dark comedy in every sense of the word. It takes place in a shrouded world, where all trains run underground, all lights are dim or flickering, where the few outdoor scenes occur at night. The comedy comes…
Building on John Paul II’s theology of the body, Adam Cooper’s Holy Eros sketches out a “liturgical theology of the body.” He aims to show “how the liturgy bodily enacts the truth of our Christian faith, and how that truth in turn is expressed in the structure and bodily actions…
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