Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
(continued from previous issue) Between 30 and 50 What did the Levites do between age 30 and 50? Numbers 4 shows us that they carried the house of God on their shoulders. Lifting up the Lord is an image of worship in the Bible, and David’s restructuring of the Levites…
When God created the world, He created two lands: the Throne-land of Eden (entered through the sanctuary-garden, the Garden of Eden), and the Outlying Lands, such as the lands of Havilah and Cush. This essentially bi-polar world is the world of the Old Creation, and it continued to exist until…
Color is inescapable, except for those who are color blind. In our church architecture, we either employ color schemes that are helpful to worship, or we employ color schemes that are not helpful. Of course, this assertion merely begs the question: What color schemes are most helpful. God showed interest…
As I noted in an earlier article in Rite Reasons , the Church Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine all claimed that baptism inducts the baptized person into membership in the royal priesthood of the church, and Thomas Aquinas said that baptism, by imprinting an indelible “character” on the soul, confers…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
In my Preliminary Commentary on Daniel , which many of you have obtained, I argued in chapter 13 that the four monsters called up from the sea by the evangelistic work of the four winds (the saints) represented the deep hatred of God that evangelistic work brings to the fore…
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One of the unique features of film, argues Leo Braudy in his classic The World in a Frame: What We See in Films, 25th Anniversary Edition , is its once-for-all quality: “In theater and music, there is always a text, a form to which every performance exists at least as…
The second part of Jeff Meyers’ Lenten meditation on John’s Passion narrative is up at the Trinity House site .
Trinity House just sent out its second edition of our e-newsletter, In Medias Res. It includes an essay by Pastor Steve Wilkins, “The Church Transformed and Transforming” and James Jordan’s analysis of Psalms 9-10, along with news about Trinity House. Sign up for the newsletter here .
In his new Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Cultural Liturgies) , James KA Smith provides this deft summary of Merleau-Ponty’s description of our “interinvolvement” with the world (p. 44): “We build up a habitual way of being-in-the-world that is carried in our body, one that is ‘known’ on a…
After all his polemics against nomos in Galatians, 6:2 comes as a shock: “So fulfill the nomos of Christ.” Paul plays similar tricks with the word elsewhere (Romans 3:27; 8:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21). Paul wants the Galatians “under law,” provided it is the law of Christ. (Note too Paul’s sudden…
Jesus reads Isaiah 61 in His first sermon at Nazareth, and says that He fulfills prophets’ promise of an anointed Servant to preach good news to the poor (Luke 4). It is a programmatic sermon for Luke’s gospel, who highlights Jesus’ ministry among the marginal and weak. In the ensuing…
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