Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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My article from First Things is now available in German at: http://www.freikirchen.at/2009/03/haltet-das-fasten-feiert-das-fest/
NT Wright has long argued that first-century Jews considered themselves to be in a continuing exile. The canon of the Hebrew Bible suggests as much. If we take our arrangement (the LXX arrangement), the Hebrew Bible ends with Malachi, who certainly doesn’t see a gloriously restored Israel when he looks…
An essay of mine on “Triune Holiness” is posted here, along with other essays on the Trinity: http://rdtwot.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/2009-trinity-blogging-summit/
Paul’s teaching concerning the relation of the Spirit to law is often understood this way: The law sets out God’s demands for His people; we can’t keep those demands; the Spirit enables us to conform to the law. That’s one way of putting it. It is the way that Jeremiah…
A version of my Ash Wednesday homily is posted today on the First Things web site (firstthings.com).
Alexander Schmemann notes in his Introduction to Liturgical Theology that “Liturgical historians have taken insufficient notice of the fact that the persecutions, conflicts, sufferings and isolation of Christians are almost completely unmentioned in the prayers and liturgical texts of early Christianity. The worship of the early Church was not merely…
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