Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Reformers did not start out with a plan to found separated churches. Their goal was to reform the entire Latin church. In this they failed. The paradox is sharp, and we need to feel its point and its edge if we Protestants are to reckon honestly with our history…
Conversion is a turning from sin to Christ. Now, let's think about that. Does conversion happen only once in a lifetime, or does it happen many times? That is the question, I believe, that needs answering. From my experience, and from my understanding of the Bible and of Christianity, there…
Israel was supposed to be a priest to the nations (Ex. 19:6). Her water would cause their trees to grow. This was signified to all men when Israel came out of Egypt, for "then they came to Elim, where they were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and…
Rousing Soviet songs surround us as we pass through a gloomy gauntlet of titanic statues on our way to Kyiv’s Museum of the Great Patriotic War. My friends, a Polish and a Ukrainian pastor, remember the songs, which played incessantly on the radio during their childhood. The sculpture complex depicts…
This is the second installment of a two-part article. Click HERE to read Part I. The fourth perspective on ceremony is that of the action of the Lord's Supper. As we noted before, the inauguration of the Lord's Supper preceded its interpretation. Jesus did not at that point give an…
The best courses are those that make you see the Bible, the church, or the world differently. The recent Theopolis Architecture Course with Daniel Lee did exactly that. Architect Daniel Lee began the week with architectural theory, continued through the week taking students through a history of architectural practice, and…
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A s a techno-lagger, I came late to the smart phone world. Every sentient adult who has used a phone over the past decade saw everything I’m seeing long ago. Still, it might be worth putting it to writing. Smart phones and other sorts of communication devices have of course…
In his commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans (60-1), Peter Stuhlmacher argues that Paul’s use of hilasterion in Romans 3:25 refers not to a “propitiation” but to a “place” of atonement. The import is that Jesus’ death radically alters the terrain of atonement. Stuhlmacher writes that through Christ’s redemption…
In his essay in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology , Nehemia Polen explores what light the letter to Hebrews throws on the purposes and rituals of Leviticus. Contrary to many popular understanding, the focus of Leviticus is not forgiveness, but rather has to do with the maintenance…
Emil Brunner acknowledges that “The message of the Cross is the central mystery of the scriptural Gospel.” In his view, it “is not the task of theology to explain these mysteries: for if explanation were possible these mysteries would only be fortuitous mysteries, and thus not real and divine.” But…
PT Forsyth responds to the charge that the church is slow to accomplish her mission because of her unfaithfulness with this neat inversion ( Work of Christ , 21): “Do you really find that the deeper you get into Christ and the meaning of His demands Christianity spreads faster in…
Teju Cole pays tribute to Krzysztof Kie?lowski’s 1996 film Red in the December 22 issue of The New Yorker . The film tells a small, quiet tale, a film of “hushed intensity” and conveys “the sense of inner workings not fully grasped.” A woman in Geneva, Valentine, runs over a…
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