Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Along His journey to Jerusalem, Jesus stops frequently to have meals, three times with Pharisees (7:37-50; 11:37-54; 14:1-35). Meals were central to Jesus’ ministry. He comes “eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34). While His meals are not just for refreshment, they are opportunities for teaching the protocols of the kingdom. Meals…
Time as a realm of participation can be difficult for us imaginatively to grasp. While music is a profoundly temporal art, exploring the medium of time like no other, most of our temporal experience seems decidedly unmusical in character, disjointed and unorchestrated. The form in which we naturally discover time…
John devotes much attention to Jesus’ burial clothes. He tells us that Nicodemus brought about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to spice Jesus body, and that He was bound in linen wrappings. We find out that His body and His head were wrapped separately. (John 19:39-40; 20:6-7). When…
Thinking about time in terms of music also helps us to appreciate its unity and inner relations. Henri Bergson observes our cultural habit of dividing time into discrete moments, and conceiving of these as if akin to objects in a spatial succession. [1] Against such a notion, Bergson argues for…
As we attend to these and other aspects of music’s temporality, Begbie suggests, we will find means by which to resist some of our habitual modern ways of conceptualizing time, most especially our tendency to conceive of time as if it were a homogeneous set of technologically quantifiable units laid…
The Hidden Dimension In many fields of scientific study, the apparent complications and contradictions are dispelled once the internal logic is perceived. Biblical hermeneutics is no different, since the author of Creation is the Author of the Word. The Bible’s literary labyrinth radiates organically from an algorithm so simple it…
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Russian Orthodox liturgical theologian Alexander Schmemann died in 1983, but his importance continues to grow, and in surprising ways. A Russian transplanted to Paris and then to Crestwood, New York, he was an acute observer of the American religious scene. He possessed the clarity of vision the Spirit often grants…
The Chronicler's account of the reign of Amon, son of Manasseh and father of Josiah, is very brief (2 Chronicles 33:21-25). But these few verses hold some treasure. Like his father, he does evil in the eyes of Yahweh. Throughout 1-2 Chronicles the verb for "doing" evil is 'asah ,…
The following is a selection from my survey of the Old Testament, A House For My Name . Use the code LEITREADER to get 30% off this book during checkout at www.canonpress.com/a-house-for-my-name . The time of the judges is a bad time for Israel. Priests and Levites are unfaithful, the…
How is liturgy related to life? We might explore that question by attending to the nouns: What is liturgy? What is life? I instead want to pay attention to the conjunction: What are we saying when we say we talk about liturgy “and” life? The "and" suggests that we're talking…
The Chronicler's account of Manasseh's reign (2 Chronicles 33:1-20) is organized in a chiasm: A. Manasseh becomes king, v. 1 B. Builds high places, erects altars and an image, vv. 2-9 C. Manasseh does not listen, v. 10 D. Yahweh brings host of Assyrians, v. 11 C’. Humbles himself, prays,…
The story of the tower of Babel, writes Harvey H. Guthrie ( Theology As Thanksgiving ) is "a sarcastic caricature of ancient Near Eastern culture and society and religion" (91). The tower is "the structure through which the human community made contact with the heavenly community whose existence was the…
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