Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mrs. Marguerite Lane of Grand Rapids writes to ask if I have ever noticed a correlation between the eight beatitudes of Matthew 5 and the eight woes of Matthew 23. I confess that I have not. A glance at various commentators reveals that such a correspondence does not seem to…
1. The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, the burden. The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: 2. Surely I am more stupid than any other man, And I do not have the understanding of a man. 3. And I have not learned wisdom, But I have…
Psalm 137 is widely regarded as one of the meanest of the imprecatory psalms. Certainly as we read it it is seems to be a song of pure vengeance. The exiles in Babylon, in grief over the judgment that Babylon has brought upon them, pray for the destruction of that…
In the Levitical law, the priests received two particular portions of each peace offering: the "wave offering" of the breast and the "heave offering" (or better, "contribution") of the right thigh. The purpose of this essay is to attempt to determine the reason why the second of these, the thigh,…
The story of Jesus’ visit, early in His ministry, to the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth is recorded for us in Luke 4:16-30. You may remember that Jesus read from Isaiah about how the Messiah would preach the gospel, care for the poor, work miracles, and bring in…
(The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what I think needs to be said —…
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B orn to Run is an anthem of escape, seemingly an exodus from the confinements of small-town America: “H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back / It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap / We gotta get out while we’re young / ‘Cause tramps like us,…
T errence Rafferty calls filmmaker Guillermo del Toro the “Master of Highbrow Horror” ( The Atlantic ). He traces del Toro’s aesthetic to a childlike mix of fear and fascination: “Toro’s work isn’t simply the something’s-out-to-get-you feeling of conventional scare pictures. It’s fear mixed with fascination, a childlike wonder at…
I n an essay on the notion of “cosmopolitanism,” Wayne Cristaudo presents Franz Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy as thinkers who propose an un philosophical cosmopolitanism. That un- is critical, Crustaudo thinks, to a genuine recognition of and reckoning with difference: Both Rosenzweig and Rosenstock oppose “the more typical philosophical approach…
J anet Adelman ( Blood Relations ) devotes an interesting chapter to analyzing Lancelot’s departure from Shylock’s house, and his strange reunion with his father Gobbo, in Merchant of Venice . Lancelot has been Shylock’s servant, but he has had enough and, like Shylock’s daughter Jessica, he leaves for the…
I n his provocative essay on Gender , Ivan Illich describes a shift from “vernacular gender” to “social sex.” By the former, he meant “a distinction in behavior, a distinction universal in vernacular cultures. It distinguishes places, times, tools, tasks, forms of speech, gestures, and perceptions that are associated with…
Ivan Illich ( Gender ) points to the differences between the activities of a modern housewife and those of her grandmother. They are practically and economically quite distinct. “When a modern housewife goes to the market, picks up the eggs, drives them home in her car, takes the elevator to…
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