Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I grew up in the 1950s. This was before the "Sixties" and the democratization, informalization, and general cheapening of the church and her worship. Ministers were Father Donovan, Pastor Eckhart, Reverend MacPherson, Mister (Episcopal) Parker, and Brother Smith. Liturgical speech was high language, sounding kind of like the King James…
Metaphor exerts a surprisingly powerful influence within our thinking. Although it is easily dismissed as little more than a figure of speech, when we attend more closely to the ways in which we use it, metaphor’s importance swiftly becomes more apparent. Although many of our metaphors have become quite invisible…
What is a tree, scientifically speaking? A mere googling gives the following answer: “a woody perennial plant, typically having a single stem or trunk growing to a considerable height and bearing lateral branches at some distance from the ground.” We can increase detail by describing its family, genus, species and…
The majority of Western evangelical Christians rarely, if ever, fast as a form of spiritual discipline. In our culture, fasting is more connected with dieting than worship, the other side of our deeply ambiguous fascination with food. Food is everywhere. We eat more than ever before, at greater speed, and…
A Grammar of Creation An understanding of the visual-musical language of the Bible must begin with Genesis 1. This is fortunate, because when explaining biblical types to academics, as opposed to children, one is repeatedly forced to start from scratch. From birth, a healthy child is attuned to rhythm and…
In an inverse Eden, a land laid waste, one works alone tending the trash. There are none like him in all the earth, inquisitive, playful and most drawn to those mysterious, dancing bipedal creatures who lost earth and left it to go wandering the vast wilderness of space. Humans have…
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John 4:10-14 Jesus fulfills the entirety of the Old Testament. That is John?s gospel: The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh to dwell among us. He gives wine in place of the water of purification; His body is…
In this morning?s sermon, we considered the continuities and discontinuities between the Old and New Covenant with regard to liturgy. Contrary to some Protestant traditions, Jesus did not teach that the New Covenant would dispense with rites, signs, material substances, and physical actions in worship. That is not what Jesus…
The worship of the Christian church is ?spiritual?Eworship, worship ?in the Spirit?Eand ?through the Spirit.?E Every Christian can agree on that. What we cannot agree about is what this means for our worship. For some Christians, spiritual worship means worship that ignores our bodies as much as possible. Spiritual worship…
Ephesians 5:1-2, 25 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma . . . . Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also…
One of the most illuminating chapters of Ward’s book on the covenant of works is his discussion of grace and merit in chapter 17. Some highlights: 1) He notes that the word “grace” is used in the NT “without any notion of favour in the presence of demerit,” citing Lk…
The Hour Is Coming, John 4:1-42 INTRODUCTION The relationship between the Old and New Covenants is one of the critical issues in Christian theology, including liturgical theology. Most of the differences in liturgical tradition within the church are bound up with evaluations of Israel?s worship in the temple. In the…
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