Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
G.K. Chesterton assumes a surprising and memorable perspective from which to view the events of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The Donkey by: G.K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head…
There is a common biblical principle: you must give back what you steal. In the Bible, restitution is repayment with interest. If you rob someone of their money, you have to pay back double what you stole. A thief must pay back fourfold if he steals a sheep, and if…
Identifying Isaiah’s suffering servant with the promised Messiah is unthinkable for a Jew because it combines the offices of humble priest and victorious king. While it is frustrating that Jews refuse to see the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53, the reluctance of Christians to interpret the passage in its…
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6 (ESV) The command to praise God is pervasive throughout Scripture. In the verse above the Spirit calls all things with breath to praise the Lord. Song is also clearly featured all throughout Scripture and is a featured…
“Gender is a social construct.” That’s shocking to people who have assumed that gender and sex were synonyms but at least since I was in college, in the ‘80s, we were taught that “gender” refers to the forms, the customs, the traditions that our culture teaches us to define what…
In Genesis 49, Jacob prophesies about (blesses and curses?) his twelve sons. The first three of them don’t fare well. Jacob recalls Reuben’s offense of taking his concubine (Genesis 35:22) and the murderous violence of Simeon’s and Levi against the Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). He…
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The third vision of the Apocalypse takes place in the wilderness, where Jesus unveils Babylon, the harlot city that drinks the blood of the saints. This is the thing that will shortly take place: The beast that carries Babylon is going to turn on her and destroy her. This third…
Thomas Aquinas is known for his negative theology: "We are not capable of knowing what God s, but we can know what He is not" (ST, I, 3, prologue). His negative philosophy is less well known, but Josef Pieper argues ( The Silence of Saint Thomas ) that this is…
This is my last blog post at Patheos. In the future, I will post now and then at TheopolisInstitute.com . Look for me there.
Some observations about the story of Tamar and Judah, recorded in Genesis 38, inspired by a lively discussion of the narrative at the Theopolis Regional Course in Dallas last weekend. 1) The chapter has a chiastic structure: A. Judah’s family, vv 1-5: take wife and conceive; births; replacement of firstborn…
Steve Duby objects to my brief set of warnings about the uses of philosophy in theology. I suppose I've said ill-considered things about philosophy or some philosopher in some of my writing. But this post was, in my judgment, generous in spirit, moderate in its claims, and modest in its…
In a chapter on "Nicene metaphysics" in The Hidden and the Manifest , David Bentley Hart explains the radical differences between the Plotinian metaphysics and the metaphysics implicit in early Trinitarianism. The article turns on the dynamics of hiddenness and manifestation. Plotinus's ultimate principle, "the One," cannot reveal itself. It…
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