Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…
Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…
Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…
Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…
Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…
Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…
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Robert Filmer, Locke’s main opponent in his First Treatise , nails the flaw in Hobbes’s theory concerning the state of nature: “I cannot understand how this right of nature can be conceived without imagining a company of men at the very first to have been all created together without any…
According to Laurie Bagby ( Thomas Hobbes: Turning Point for Honor , 5-7 ), Hobbes sets out to “deconstruct” the idea of honor by collapsing it “into what he calls ‘vainglory’ or harmful ‘pride.’” That’s well and good, depending of course on what we mean by the word “honor.” What…
A mediation for the baptism of my third granddaughter, June Annwyn Marie Tollefson. Ephesians 5:8: You were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the world; walk as children of Light. It’s a good Sunday for a baptism. In many churches, today, the third Sunday of Advent, is Gaudete…
1 John 1:5: This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. We sin because of unbelief, and unbelief is distrust. Adam sinned when he became convinced that God was withholding the fruit…
Advent celebrates the coming of day. The Light that lightens every man comes into the world to break the gloom that hangs over Israel and the nations. Zecharias sings, “The Sunrise from on high has visited us.” Night is past; Dawn has come. You’d think everyone would be glad, but…
Athenian democracy was an effort to dislodge political power from the tangles of patronage. Athenians viewed dependence as virtual slavery, and created institutional structures to prevent indebtedness - real and symbolic. Many of these structures ensured rule by the demos in their various citizen assemblies. But that did not, of…
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