Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I revisited Athanasius’s On the Incarnation in light of Advent this year. A particular passage struck me with a question that I hadn’t considered before. When addressing Adam’s fall, Athanasius says this: “If then there were only the offense and not the consequence of corruption, repentance would have been fine.…
There is much wisdom for kings in the first letter of Paul to the Church in Corinth. As I am preaching through this letter, this is one of the major themes that stands out. That is the theme of the reign of the Christian as we live in union with…
1 The title should not be a surprise to anyone who believes the Bible to be true. According to the Bible, any and every faith and religion that does not conform to the Gospel of Christ are not only false, but ultimately inspired by false spirits. Though Jeffrey Niehaus is…
Names are weighty things, a fact repeatedly evidenced in the biblical narrative. There are several occasions when the names mothers or fathers chose for their children, and the reasons for which the names were chosen, are given extended attention in the text. Much of Genesis 29 and 30, for instance,…
Growing up, I was crestfallen about any Christmas that fell on Sunday. Christmas on Sunday meant going to church when I’d rather lollygag around the Christmas tree in my pajamas, playing with new toys. Christmas on Sunday was a drag. If I still felt that way, I know what I’d…
Growing up in the church in Southern America, there was an oft-used category for leaders in the church. It was a category which was used to justify a variety of rules and restrictions on church leaders. Leaders were to be “above reproach” and that meant not drinking in public or…
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Rabbinic Judaism, Stephen Geller suggests, is the “triumph of Deuteronomy and the Word.” After the fall of the temple especially, the place of the cult was taken by prayer and the liturgy. The literary temple became far more important than any possible future building. And with the end of the…
Michel Anteby’s Manufacturing Morals is an “ethnography” of the Harvard Business School. It’s an odd book, very insight-the-HBS, but along the way he develops the intriguing notions of “vocal silence.” Routine seems to rob individuals of responsibility. But most routines, Anteby points out, require some degree of responsible judgment: “Police…
In his contribution to The Neighbor , Zizek offers this typically contrarian, typically extreme, description of the impact of God’s command to love the neighbor: “What gets lost in this ‘critique of ethical violence’ is precisely the most precious and revolutionary aspect of the Jewish legacy. Let us not forget…
Rivers have a unique place in biblical cosmology. Though watery, rivers are unlike the sea, which always threatens to overwhelm the land. Channeled, water becomes life-giving. They keep land fruitful, set boundaries between peoples or join them as liquid roads. A river is water brought into service to human needs,…
Someone asked me recently if my Gratitude includes a section on Barth. It doesn’t, and I’m sure this is not the last time I will turn sheepish as I confess to a large, unconscionable gap in the book. It doesn’t make up for the oversight, but here are some summary…
Stephen Geller opens an essay on blood in “P” by stating that he is treating the Pentateuch as a literary unit. What the “priestly editor” produced, he argue is not “patchwork aggregate signifying nothing” but “a work meaningful in the whole, a tapestry more than the sum of its woven…
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