Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Bible, all the world is a stage, but like the Tabernacle, that stage moves around a lot. David’s defeat of Goliath can only be fully understood as liturgy fulfilled in history. Liturgy, as a sacrifice of praise, is the step-by-step process of resolving a conflict. It relinquishes all…
Aristotle isn’t fundamentally wrong about friendship, nor is the long tradition that follows him. But you might not gather that by reading some of the more pointed critics of the classical conception of friendship. I think, however, that the classical view is not only viable but taken up and fulfilled…
#13 in Theopolis Papers, Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World It is time for me to “cast off” integration, the way a knitter removes a completed scarf from the needles. I want to bring my quest concerning integration to a decent closure, though my happy quest for reality continues. With…
Below are some notes on a particular sub-theme of Daniel 3, namely the downfall of Babylon’s liturgy. First up, a few words on our text’s literary construction. One of the most conspicuous features of Dan. 3 is its author’s love of lists . Personnel are listed (vs. 2, 3, 27),…
Few things in Scripture, few things in the Christian life, are more familiar than the Lord’s Prayer. Sunday after Sunday, we pray these words together with our brothers and sisters. At home, alone or with our families, we pray this prayer daily, as Jesus taught us (Luke 11:2: “When you…
At the 2019 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, the denominational delegates considered a number of official overtures (requests for action from the regional parts of the denomination) relating to issues of gender and sexuality. The PCA is conservative. As evidence of this, the assembly passed a resolution…
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Sociologists want to present themselves as objective scientists of the social order, but when Christian Smith looks at his disciple he doesn’t see science. He sees the Sacred Project of American Sociology , sociology constituted as a project that he is even willing to describe as “spiritual.” He applies a…
When the sixth trumpet sounds, a voice commands the trumpet angel to let the four angels at the corners of the land go (Revelation 9:13-14). The following lines are a neatly parallel command-and-response. First the command: a. Loose b. the four angels c. who are bound d. at the river,…
Paul’s use of the notion of “flesh” has long been puzzling. He is no gnostic, but he seems to have a hostility to “flesh.” His condemnation is so strong that some translations have sidestepped the problem by glossing sarx (flesh) as “sinful nature.” It’s a bad translation, and bad theology.…
A recent report on research by the Federal Reserve of St Louis found that “Over the course of a 30-year career, mothers outperformed women without children at almost every stage of the game. In fact, mothers with at least two kids were the most productive of all.” The results were…
John sees the glorified Jesus at the beginning of Revelation, and described his clothing and then his figure in some detail. Jesus commissions him to write. In chapter 10, a similar figure appears holding a book, and instructs John to eat then then to prophesy. Though the figure descending from…
John sees two scenes in Revelation 9: A swarm of macabre cherubim arises from the abyss, and then four angels are permitted to release a massive army from the Euphrates. Both armies are described in some detail, and the organization of the descriptions are intricately structured. This post furthers some…
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