Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
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Thomas Aquinas explained the Triune Persons as subsistent relations: “As to essence, the Father is in the Son because the Father is his essence and he shares it with the Son without any change taking place in himself” ( ST I, 42). Stephen Long explains Thomas’s claim that Father, Son…
For the past five years, I have blogged here at First Things . I was surprised and grateful when Matt Schmitz first offered me this prominent venue, and I remain humbled at the privilege and the astonishing freedom I've had to write and publish to my heart's content. A huge…
Every Friday, I compile snippets into a potpourri of musings and mutterings, served up in a Friday Flurry (not available at DQ). God made us to be knowers. We long to know. Esther Meek argues ( Longing to Know ) that the frustration of this desire is one of the…
The following is an extract from chapter 1 of my Against Christianity (Canon Press, 2003). 1 The Bible never mentions Christianity. It does not preach Christianity, nor does it encourage us to preach Christianity. Paul did not preach Christianity, nor did any of the other apostles. During centuries when the…
A few reflections on Barth’s discussion of the Trinity in Church Dogmatics 1.1, ch 10. 1) Barth insists that Trinitarian theology developed not as a qualification of monotheism but as a way of defending monotheism: “Christian monotheism was and is also and precisely the point also and precisely in the…
In his book on giving and forgiving ( Free of Charge ), Miroslav Volf summarizes Luther's metaphor of the "flow" of God's love. Human love sometimes sucks the life and love out of us, but not God's love. Rather, as Luther says, "it flows forth and bestows good" (quoted 49).…
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