Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me. In 2005, God blessed our family with our third child, our second daughter, whom we named Bethany. As soon as Bethany was born, we knew there was something different about her. Unlike her two older siblings, who were born…
Christian, what is it that we believe? While Creeds like the Nicene and Apostle’s have been fundamental pieces of Christian liturgy and life, the American Church is highly unattached to these classic statements. From this creedal phobia has arisen the popular “No Creed, but Christ” slogan. Such slogan, of course,…
Revisiting William Cavanaugh’s devastating 2009 The Myth of Religious Violence . The myth of Cavanaugh’s title is a well-known one. According to the myth, religion is a distinct sphere of human life and practice from the rest of human social life, a universal impulse in human beings, and is dogmatic,…
19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 20 And when he had so…
An octave is a repetition, a repetition with a difference. It’s not the first note played again , but the first note played at a higher pitch. Octaves have always marked new beginnings. Hebrew boys were circumcised on the eighth day. Firstborn sheep were dedicated to Yahweh on the eighth…
We say Jesus’ resurrection is good news. It wasn’t good news for the disciples on the first Easter. More like perplexing, bewildering news. For others, it wasn’t perplexing, and it certainly wasn’t good. It was plain old bad news. Early in Luke’s gospel, Herod is terrified that Jesus might be…
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Psalm 128 promises a fruitful home to the man who fears Yahweh. He will prosper from the labor of his hands, with no one plundering or taxing away his goods. The assumption is that productive work is part of family life. The family is an economic unit, among other things,…
God gave us the book of Proverbs to teach us wisdom. Partly, He does that by teaching us the content of Proverbs. But he is also teaching us wisdom by the way He communicates wisdom. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of kings to conceal a matter, but the…
Atonement theories can be seen as efforts to synthesize the grace and judgment of God: How does He show grace to a race that deserves condemnation. Solutions are often sought systematic syntheses, and there is something to that: The cross proves God to be just and the justifier of those…
Revelation is a confusing book for many readers, apparently endlessly, perhaps even drearily repetitive. The pyrotechnics and special effects might fascinate for a bit, but after a while it all blurs and blends and leaves us wandering in the bewilderness (David Sterritt's wonderful term). Can we find fixed points, coordinates…
We do what we do because we hope to accomplish something by our actions. All our actions are directed at the future. We want things to be different than they are now, and we plan and act in hope that we can make things come out differently than they otherwise…
Modern theology has often been obsessively concerned to justify itself to cultured despisers, and this self-justification has often taken the form of “prolegomenon,” the technical name for an introduction to a theological treatise. To the extent that prolegomena represent efforts to describe the work of theology and its place in…
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