Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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John Franke’s ETS presentation on “indirect revelation” was revealing. Drawing explicitly from Barth, he argued that the concept of “indirect revelation” provided an outlook on revelation that was both faithful to the historic Christological formulas of the patristic period (God comes to us “veiled” in human form) and specifically the…
John Franke’s ETS presentation on “indirect revelation” was revealing. Drawing explicitly from Barth, he argued that the concept of “indirect revelation” provided an outlook on revelation that was both faithful to the historic Christological formulas of the patristic period (God comes to us “veiled” in human form) and specifically the…
Scot Hafemann did a paper on 2 Peter 2, focusing especially on Peter’s treatment of Noah and the flood narratives. He began by noting the odd direction of the argument in 2 Peter 2:1: Instead of saying that things happen in the present because they were determined or foreshadowed by…
Richard Hays gave a fine defense of figural and theological interpretation of the OT at an ETS session. He argued that the NT writers read the OT in the light of the resurrection, and saw the resurrection of Christ as the climax of the history of Israel, a climax foreshadowed…
Joel Green at ETS challenged historical-critical scholarship on the basis that the community addressed originally by Scripture is the same as the community now addressed by Scripture. We can distinguish between what it meant and what it means, but even when we do that, Green said, “we are not reading…
Joel Green at ETS challenged historical-critical scholarship on the basis that the community addressed originally by Scripture is the same as the community now addressed by Scripture. We can distinguish between what it meant and what it means, but even when we do that, Green said, “we are not reading…
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