Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In this essay we will think about how the whole Bible is structured as one Word of God. To begin with, there is only one Bible, not two. While we divide the Bible into Old and New Testaments, that division has no more meaning than divisions into chapters and verse,…
How should one badly bruised and inadequate church relate to another? (I am not addressing the blessed possessors of absolutely perfect churches, naturally.) I believe there are three things to bear in mind. First, we must be open to the values in other Christian traditions - even Roman Catholic and…
The third and sixth day have a second creative act. Note the chiastic arrangement of the material in these special acts and the parallelism between them, see the figure below. The author arranges the description of each day as a chiasm. Each line in the chiasm is mated with a…
Now the two of them were naked, the man and his woman, and they did not sense shame (Genesis 2:25) The nakedness of Adam and Eve requires several comments. First of all, against those who think that nakedness is what God intended for humanity as a permanent estate, we have…
I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of integration, and our longing for integration in a fragmented world. I’ve been connecting my own covenant epistemology further with the thought of scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi, artist Makoto Fujimura, and Classical Christian metaphysician D.C. Schindler. In my last post , and now in this…
Luke 13:31-33 is one of the strangest passages in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a time note that sounds emphatic “At that very hour.” Then, we are told of Pharisees bringing a message that Herod wants to kill Jesus! In His answer, Jesus speaks of a three day…
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Ox, Lion, Eagle, Man. The faces of the cherubim. And the faces of four constellations of the Zodiac: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius, spaced every four constellations around the ecliptic. Scorpio ? He’s no eagle. There is an eagle constellation, Aquila, but it’s along the celestial equator rather than the ecliptic;…
There is war in heaven, Michael & Co. versus Dragon and angels. Michael wins and casts the dragon from heaven to earth, where he chases down the woman’s offspring (Revelation 12). Caird ( A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine , 155-7) draws from this an integrated…
John sees in heaven a woman in labor ready to give birth to a son while a dragon waits to devour the newborn (Revelation 12). It’s a scene of Mary and Jesus and Herod, Eve and the Seed and Satan, Israel and the Messiah. It is also a story that…
One of the ways Augustine distinguishes between the “invisible” and “visible” church is in terms of the complex interaction of Old and New covenants ( On Baptism, Against the Donatists , 1.15 in St. Augustin the Writings Against the Manicheans and Against the Donatists ). Old and New are not,…
In the course of his On Baptism, Against the Donatists (in St. Augustin the Writings Against the Manicheans and Against the Donatists ), Augustine considers the case of someone who seeks baptism “in deceit.” Are his sins remitted? Yes, Augustine says, but only for a moment. The “holy power” of…
Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies , edited by Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica, aims to provide an accurate and balanced treatment of the New Testament’s treatment of empire. In their introduction, McKnight and Modica define empire criticism as a mode of interpretation…
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