Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We've all heard it, too often to count. The Apostle Paul was a misgynistic homophobic pro-slavery authoritarian, probably a repressed homosexual himself, the first Puritan - Puritan here defined as "someone who cannot sleep if someone in the world is having fun." To call this a caricature is too generous.…
Some of our forefathers believed in reading/singing the psalms in order. Today, when the psalms are even used at all, they tend to be used randomly, though sometimes tied to a church calendar or to the pastor’s sermon. The Bible does not bind us to any particular practice, but there…
". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…
The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…
When viewed as an allegory of biblical history, the controversial third act of Danny Boyle’s gripping sci-fi adventure is transformed from an illogical divergence into a blinding revelation. The following analysis contains spoilers for the movie “Sunshine.” The Creation Week is the elementary type that orders everything God has said…
In my last post , I told you the story of my current desire to understand philosopher D.C. Schindler’s metaphysical work. With this post, I start in to the venture. I begin by reflecting on what it is to be a thing. This matter always makes me laugh, and makes…
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Morna Hooker’s classic article “Adam in Romans 1” gets a basic point right: Adam is a model of fall into idolatry that Paul outlines. She also gets some things wrong. First, strangely, though she acknowledges the link between Romans 1 and Psalm 106, she never develops the point by noting…
Matt Labash has a hilarious send-up of Facebook (on which I am not) in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard . It’s a massive target: “Facebook had just added its 150-millionth member and since last August is signing up 374,000 people each day. It has achieved absolute critical mass,…
In a superb 2003 article in JETS Stephen Guthrie examines the role of singing in worship, working out some stirring pneumatological reflections on Paul’s exhortation to sing Psalms in Ephesians 5. He notes that Paul’s exhortation occurs in the context of a contrast of the children of light and the…
In an essay on the “authority of the church in temporal matters,” de Lubac writes, “Since the supernatural is not separated from nature, and the spiritual is always mixed wtih the temporal, the Chuch has eminent authority - always in proportion to the spiritual element present - over everything, without…
A thought from a student exam: In Mark’s gospel, as soon as the veil of the temple is torn, the centurion confesses Jesus as Son of God. It’s a crucial scene because it’s the first time any human recognizes Jesus as Son. And the sequence of veil and confession is…
Judith Evans Grubbs notes that the Antonine Roman emperors pursued a pro-family agenda, employing pro-family numismatic symbols for that purpose: In addition to the use of the goddess Pudicitia, “also celebrated on Antonine coins is the concordia (sense of harmony, agreement) shared by the emperor and his wife, symbolized by…
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