Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For many people Christmas comes on December 25 and is over December 26. The tree is taken down along with the lights and the other decorations, and everyone begins setting the house in order for the new year. No more Christmas hymns. No more celebrations (well, until New Year’s Eve).…
The Ascension and the Incarnation should not be disconnected in our Christmas thinking or celebrations. As N.T. Wright notes, the ascension is "a central and vital feature without which all sorts of other things start to go demonstrably wrong. . . . where the ascension has been ignored or misunderstood,…
“In the Word was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness.” Thus John describes the incarnation of the Son. He comes as the living and life-giving light of the world. That’s good news. In the beginning, God spoke and light shone…
Christmas is all about Jesus. The angels announce Jesus’ birth, shepherds and wise men come to see Jesus, Herod wants to kill Jesus. We occasionally think of the Father who sent the Son, but we keep returning to the Son made flesh in Bethlehem’s manger. Meanwhile, as always, the Spirit…
Christmas is about many things, but one of the chief things revealed in the gospel of Christmas is the humility of God. We don't often think of humility as an attribute of God. If God is glorious and exalted, we think, He must be haughty and proud and self-centered. We…
John famously begins his Gospel with a piece of theology: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Matthew starts with a genealogy. John celebrates Advent with a hymn, Matthew with a list. For John, Jesus is the Word of creation…
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A wedding sermon from October 11: At the beginning of his letter to the Romans, Paul describes himself as a “bond-servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” By the last phrase “gospel of God,” Paul was not merely saying that the gospel originates…
Luke 10 moves from the story of the Good Samaritan to the story of Mary and Martha. Though different themes come up, they are closely related issues. First, the Good Samaritan is contrasted with two liturgical specialists, a priest and a Levite, and his ministry to the wounded man suggests…
Robert Gagnon, who has written what has been described as the book on the Bible and homosexuality (still unread by me), offers these illuminating comments on the ancient views of homosexuality in an open letter to ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold:<blockquote>First, there were many theories in the Greco-Roman world that…
Sermon outline for October 12: Toward Jerusalem and the Cross, Luke 10:1-42 INTRODUCTION Jesus has embarked on His “way” toward Jerusalem (9:51). Like the angel of Yahweh who went before Israel into the land (Exodus 23:23), so Jesus sends “messengers” before His face as He travels (Luke 10:1). Along the…
Bill Kristol is very concerned for the Bush administration. In the lead editorial in this week’s Weekly Standard , he says that the administration is internally at war, a war that has come to public view in the furor over the leak concerning a CIA agent. There’s no doubt that…
During a literature exam today, one of my students exclaimed (in some frustration) that the Greeks never got over the Trojan War. That’s exactly right. Homer wrote about it, some time after the event. Centuries later, tragedians like Aeschylus (Oresteian trilogy), Sophocles ( Electra ), and Euripides ( Andromache ,…
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