Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
G.K. Chesterton assumes a surprising and memorable perspective from which to view the events of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The Donkey by: G.K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head…
There is a common biblical principle: you must give back what you steal. In the Bible, restitution is repayment with interest. If you rob someone of their money, you have to pay back double what you stole. A thief must pay back fourfold if he steals a sheep, and if…
Identifying Isaiah’s suffering servant with the promised Messiah is unthinkable for a Jew because it combines the offices of humble priest and victorious king. While it is frustrating that Jews refuse to see the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53, the reluctance of Christians to interpret the passage in its…
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6 (ESV) The command to praise God is pervasive throughout Scripture. In the verse above the Spirit calls all things with breath to praise the Lord. Song is also clearly featured all throughout Scripture and is a featured…
“Gender is a social construct.” That’s shocking to people who have assumed that gender and sex were synonyms but at least since I was in college, in the ‘80s, we were taught that “gender” refers to the forms, the customs, the traditions that our culture teaches us to define what…
In Genesis 49, Jacob prophesies about (blesses and curses?) his twelve sons. The first three of them don’t fare well. Jacob recalls Reuben’s offense of taking his concubine (Genesis 35:22) and the murderous violence of Simeon’s and Levi against the Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). He…
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From Book 1 of the Discourses on Livy: FOR WHAT REASONS THE ROMANS WERE LESS UNGRATEFUL TO THEIR CITIZENS THAN THE ATHENIANS Whoever reads of the things done by Republics will find in all of them some species of ingratitude against their citizens, but he will find less in Rome…
Socrates’ explanation of his willingness to submit to the laws of Athens, from the Crito. Since he owes the city his very existence, he has no right to renounce the laws when they turn against him: Soc. “And was that our agreement with you?” the law would say, “or were…
A few quotations from Renaissance writers on the subject of ingratitude, drawn from Catherine Dunn’s excellent 1946 CUA dissertation on the subject: Lodowick Bryskett argued that ingratitude was contrary to reason: “How shamefull a thing is it therefore to man, that brute beasts should give him examples of gratitude; and…
Xenophon describes the Persian training of boys in the Cyropaedia (1.2.6-7), highlighting the effects of ingratitude: “The boys go to school and give their time to learning justice and righteousness: they will tell you they come for that purpose, and the phrase is as natural with them as it is…
Some excerpts from Aristotle’s discussion relevant to gratitude in Nicomachian Ethics. First, a treatment of the reasons for making return on a benefit received (from 9.1): “But who is to fix the worth of the service; he who makes the sacrifice or he who has got the advantage? At any…
Katherine Marsh writes in the March 13 TNR that parenthood is not what it was cracked up to be. Instead of bringing fulfillment and happiness, it turns out that parenthood is difficult, and a number of recent articles and studies have suggested that parents are more “sad, distracted or depressed”…
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