Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After the identification of the recipients of his letter at the beginning of Revelation, John gives a benediction that resembles the benedictions of the Pauline letters. He pronounces grace/favor and peace, grace and favor that lead to peace, grace that leads to fullness and harmony that is the biblical definition…
Throughout the latter half of 1-2 Samuel, Saul and David are locked in hand-to-hand combat. It seems an unequal contest. All the heavy artillery is on Saul's side. To understand the full scope of the conflict, we need to back up to the beginning of the book. Prior to Saul's…
Last week, I lectured at Ostrog Academy in Ostrog, Ukraine, and at a pastors' conference in Kyiv. The latter was co-sponsored by Trinity House and the Alliance of Reformed Churches in Ukraine. I offer my impressions of Ukraine this morning at Firstthings.com .
Why do I bristle when I see someone with white wires hanging from his ears, flipping through what must be a million songs downloaded onto his iPod? No doubt, it’s the threat of the new. I've only recently begun carrying a cell phone, and now I hear tell of compact…
Judah is in terrible shape (Isaiah 57). Yahweh told Israel to worship Him only at the temple, but the people worship on every hill and under every green and leafy tree. He commanded them to worship Him alone, but they are devoted to many gods. Worshipers set up their beds…
Like any great writer, the Lord foreshadows late happenings in early happenings. Like many greater writers, the Lord ends where he begins, returning to a glorified Edenic city-sanctuary at the end of his cosmic story. The Lord writes with history, real people and events, not merely with words. But His…
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In the first part of his article “Soul of Reciprocity,” Milbank contrasts Cartesian generosity with Christian: “if the cogito is the donum , it is an impoverished donum . Generosity, in Descartes, begins as generosity towards oneself, or rather, as an expansive willing, that already is, auto-effectively, generosity. It is…
Maarten Wisse scores some points against Trinitarian “participationist” ontology in his 2011 Trinitarian Theology beyond Participation: Augustine’s De Trinitate and Contemporary Theology (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology) . But there are irritations. Early on, he points out that participationist theologies attempt to redress the modern disenchantment of the world.…
Vickers ( Invocation and Assent: The Making and the Remaking of Trinitarian Theology ) gives a thorough and challenging account of the collapse of Trinitarian theology in seventeenth-century English Protestantism. He thinks that the collapse can be traced to three roots: The appeal to Scripture as the rule of faith;…
Building on the work of Robert Jenson and especially JND Kelly, Jason Vickers argues in Invocation and Assent: The Making and the Remaking of Trinitarian Theology that the proto-creedal affirmations of Trinitarian theology that are found in the various “rules of faith” specifically aim to undergird confidence in the efficacy…
“Despite the contemporary belief that ‘the normal sacrificial cult is a cult without revelation or epiphany,’” writes Kimberley Patton in her Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity , “primary evidence suggests that the Greeks believed that the gods both attended and responded to sacrifice. In Book 12 of…
The cultural history of night is the subject of two recent books. Roger Ekirch’s At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past is a broad history of the uses and symbolism of night prior to the invention of electric lighting. One of his most fascinating discoveries was the habit of segmented…
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