Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
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J ames Jordan has often called attention to Ezekiel 43:10-11, where the Lord explains the purpose of the elaborate temple vision that He has shown the prophet. When Israel hears the design and plans of the temple, its entrances and exits, it straight lines and its corners, they will “be…
L awrence Feingold doesn't much like de Lubac's work on the natural desire to see God . He doesn't think the neo-Thomist distinction of natural and supernatural is responsible for the rise of atheism and naturalism. On the contrary, the distinction is necessary to combat naturalism. Feingold writes, “the Thomistic…
N ear the beginning of their Dialectic of Enlightenment , Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno “allegorize” on an episode in the Odyssey , in which Odysseus takes his ship past the Sirens who entice mariners toward the dangerous shoals of their island with their sweet singing. Odysseus wants to hear…
T rees are slow, like Ents. The electrical impulses that pass through trees travel at a rate of one-third of an inch per second. Why do trees need electricity? According to Peter Wollheben ( The Hidden Life of Trees ), they need electricity to talk to each other. He's not…
S lavoj Zizek ( Mythology, Madness, and Laughter ) explains Hegel's sublation of Kantian transcendentalism by noting that Hegel accepts Kant's root insight, the “the subjective constitution of reality, the split that separates the subject from the in-itself.” Yet Hegel doesn't stop with this acceptance: “this very split is transposed…
T he Bible is a narrative of architecture and city planning. The Creator is a divine architect and builder. On earth, He is first a landscape architect, designing and planning a garden, then a designer of tents and temples, finally an architect of people who builds a church of living…
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