Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
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The following is an excerpt from my The Baptized Body (Canon, 2007). Protestants have always emphasized that salvation comes through faith, yet most Protestants have baptized babies. How can these two things hold together? Luther and Calvin held together their insistence on faith with infant baptism by claiming that infants…
Last week, I summarized Thomas Aquinas's argument to the effect that human beings do not create. As Thomas would have expected, there's another side to the story - a sed contra - neatly outlined by Robert Miner in his Truth in the Making . Miner agrees that Thomas denies the…
Stuart Schwartz knows that his All Can Be Saved "goes against the grain in many ways. First of all, it is an examination of attitudes of tolerance among common folk, not philosophers or theologians. Second, it deals with both the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds, which are normally treated apart" (8).…
Writing at The American Conservative , Bonnie Kristian explains why the "few bad apples" defense of American policing doesn't work. She offers seven lines of evidence to show that police brutality is systematic rather than occasional. For instance: "Only one out of every three accused cops are convicted nationwide, while…
Fintan O'Toole highlights the "border issue" that may undo Brexit. He's referring to "the question of whether a hard customs and immigration border is to be imposed between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic." It's not merely a technical question of "borders and customs, of tariffs and passports." It's fiendishly…
David Lachterman ( Ethics of Geometry ) suggests that the specific novelty of the modern age is that it doesn't regard itself as a period of history. It's instead "consummate," in two senses: "as the 'final' period which brings to a permanent close all prior epochs by exposing their imperfections…
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