Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The ordination of women to the Christian ministry, specifically the pastoral office of overseeing worship and performing preaching and the Lord's Supper, is a recent development in Church history. From the early church until the late 20th century, women were never ordained as ministers of word and sacrament, not in…
The Office of Deaconness in the Garden The last act of Yahweh God in creating the world was the glorification of humanity by the creation of woman. The woman is the glory of the man, and thus a "better version" of the man, an improvement in the sense of being…
One of the first things the Bible says about God is that He is concerned with keeping time. He is not bound by time, but He is also not detached from time or disinterested in it. From the very beginning of creation, He keeps time. He defines what constitutes a…
We are surrounded by lists; we construct lists all the time. Pop music has its continuous Top 50 lists, and the New York Times has a regular best-sellers list. Many of us are fascinated by the lists of nominees for the academy awards, glance at the Sports pages to see…
Trinity House fellow Rev. Jeff Meyers and Peter Leithart will lecture at the annual All Saints conference at Community Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, November 1-3. Click here for schedule and registration.
The French Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) was one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, a central figure in the ressourcement movement and the nouvelle theologie that inspired the change of atmosphere in the Catholic church leading up to Vatican II. In his book on…
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After the flood, Noah builds an altar ( mizbeach ) offers ascension offerings ( ya’al ‘oloth ). It’s the first altar and the first ascension offering in biblical history (Genesis 8:20). Noah is the first king, the first to be given authority to shed human blood, the first to drink…
Leviticus 1:7-9 describes the arrangement of animal parts for an ‘olah , an “ascension” offering. It’s a double or triple layering of the animal: head, suet, and entrails-and-legs; or, as a double structure with the entrails and legs set off from head and suet by the water barrier. Mary Douglas…
The peace offering is the one offering that a worshiper eats from. It is the offering of the marriage feast. But that’s not the thing that gets emphasized in chapter 3. What gets emphasized instead is the fat . The word is used 12 times in the chapter. These are…
Mary Douglas ( Leviticus as Literature ) explains the connections between the qereb , the inner parts of the animal, and the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle: “The Bible locates the emotions and thought in the innermost parts of the body; the loins are wrung with remorse or grief; the…
David Janzen ( Social Meanings of Sacrifice ) follows other scholars in bringing attention to “the relation between sacrifice and the importance of order.” He cites Jon Levenson’s comment that God “acts like an Israelite priest in the act of separation ( hbdyl ) of the various categories of created…
In a recent issue of Review of Biblical Literature, Lars Kierspel offers this commend on Pentecostal theologian William Atkinson’s Baptism in the Spirit , a monograph on the debate about James Dunn’s Baptism in the Holy Spirit . He argues that Atkinson errs in detaching the gift of the Spirit…
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