Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
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In his contribution to The Reader Must Understand , Crispin Fletcher-Louis argues convincingly that “heaven and earth” in Jesus’ eschatological discourses doesn’t refer to “a collapse of the space-time universe . . . but as a collapse of a mythical space-time universe which is embodied in the Jerusalem temple” (162).…
God hangs the earth on nothing (Job 26:7). That’s literally true. There’s no changeless substance beneath the surface of change, nothing holding us up, making it all stable and safe. There’s nothing holding creation in place except God. Every effort to hang the world on something , every effort to…
A friend recently criticized the popular use of dance imagery to describe the perichoretic life of the Trinity. I laughed and played along. I’ve been in churches that have tried to enact the perichoretic dance, and, trust me, it ain’t inspiring. But then I want to say: Doesn’t that criticism…
Registration is now open for the Pentecost term course at Trinity House, an introduction to liturgical theology taught by Pastor Jeffrey Meyers of Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, St. Louis. For more information and registration, click here .
Evelyn Barish’s The Double Life of Paul De Man has received mixed reviews. The NYTBR review cataloged minor errors to build a case against Barish’s reliability. Robert Alter’s review in The New Republic finds Barish’s case compelling. The case is moral and not merely intellectual. Alter writes that de Man…
Every morning Venus lights up in the sky before the sun rises - a speck of light before the sun. Jesus is the morning star (Revelation 22:16), who shines before the light of the Father is revealed. Jesus is the morning star that announces a day where there will be…
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