Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I'm afraid of messing up. Not just of messing up in general, but of messing this up—the big This that is the story that is my life, the story that God is attempting to tell with me as His material. The question casts its shadow over all my decisions. Can…
Jesus’ letter to Pergamum mentions Balaam and Balak (Revelation 2:14), and that is a signal that the whole message is running along the lines of Numbers 22-25. The death of the high priest is a sacrificial moment in the life of Israel. According to the rules of the cities of…
As you come to be joined in marriage today, I want to take a moment to focus on one important dimension of what it means to be married as Christians: that is as those who know Jesus and are being made into His likeness. This is a glorious day, full…
When Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.” Jesus saith unto him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest…
Philosophers have measured mountains, Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings, Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love. The Agonie –…
The third chapter of Luke famously opens with a list of mighty men, seven mighty men, potential heroes of the Mediterranean world. Beginning with Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate, passing on to Herod the Tetrarch and his brothers, and ending with two High Priests, Luke says that the word of…
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Ratramnus, most famous for his contribution to Eucharistic theology in his debate with Radbertus, was asked by a priest, Rimbert, whether the dogheads were human. Rimbert’s interest was evangelistic: If human, dogheads should be evangelized. Seems so, Ratramnus said. They live in villages, practice farming, wear clothes, and even keep…
Everyone in the Middle Ages knew that St. Christopher was a dog head, a man’s body with a dog’s head. A Welsh poem about King Arthur told of his battle with the dogheads near Edinburgh: “By the hundred they fell” before Excalibur. But where did they live? A few said…
Reflections on a class discussion earlier today about place, our connection to the ground, and gnosticism. 1) Blood and soil are “powers” that can and have dominated human life, and caused lots of human misery. 2) Jesus overcomes those powers. We are identified by water and feast, not by blood…
Psalm 105:28-36 lists the plagues. Some of them. But not in the order they happened. Instead of the ten plagues of exodus, there are only seven (darkness, water to blood, frogs, flies/gnats, hail, locusts, firstborn). Seven strikes a chord, as does the fact that the summary begins in darkness (reversing…
Niall Ferguson nicely summarizes the critiques of empire by dividing them between critiques that focus on the effect on subject peoples and critiques that focus on the effects on the subjectors. The first critiques, which focus on the effects on the subject peoples, can take a nationalist or a Marxist…
Obvious as the answer may seem, it is a question worth asking because the word has been so overused that important distinctions are being lost. Stephen Howe writes: “Ideas about empire have . . . seemed to spread and multiply beyond all limit or control. ‘Imperialism’, as a word has…
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