Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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John 13:1: Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. John introduces the final scenes of Jesus and…
Paul urges us to rejoice in the midst of tribulations and sufferings, not because sufferings and tribulations are good in themselves, but because of the fruit they produce. Tribulation, he says, produces perseverance, proven character, and a hope that does not disappoint. Everyone suffers, but not everyone produces these fruits.…
Jay McInerny reviews First Chapter: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard in the NYT. He says in part: “Bayard’s hero in this enterprise is the librarian in Robert Musil’s ‘Man Without Qualities’ (a book I seem to recall having read halfway through, and Bayard claims…
FCN Hicks offers this wonderful summary of human perichoresis: “The ordinary man is apt to say that, for him, the idea of ‘mutual indwelling’ is unreal, a thing, perhaps for ‘saints,’ or of exceptionally religious people, but without meaning in the ordinary experience of the world. Yet, as so often…
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (HDM) trilogy truly deserves all the epithets hurled at it, and Christians are gearing up for the December release of the film version of The Golden Compass , the first book in the trilogy. We needn’t worry. Hollywood is working its magic. Chris Weitz, the…
For anyone looking for Latin texts of Augustine on the web, the most complete site I’ve been able to find is: www.augustinus.it/index2.htm. Also, check out J.J. O’Donnell’s Confessions commentary at ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html.
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