Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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Ernst Cassirer ( The Individual and Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy ) characterizes Nicholas of Cusa as the first modern man in that he focused the concern of philosophy not on God but on “knowledge about God.” In this emphasis, Cusa was making a decisive break with medieval scholastic thought, though…
The gospel has done its work almost too effectively. OC institutions and forms ?Esacrifice, laws of uncleanness, central sanctuaries, gradations of priestly privilege, distinctive dress ?Ewere the very stuff of life of ancient Israel. When it is said that the gospel changed all that, we have a tendency to say,…
Who is being satirized in Twain’s Connecticut Yankee ? The Yankee or the court? Overtly, the court, for its superstition, ignorance, filthiness, and so on. But Hank Morgan comes off as equally insular and parochial, and far more of a snob. I wonder if Twain noticed, and if it’s deliberate?
Sermon outline for Sunday, January 18: Lost and Found, Luke 15:1-35 INTRODUCTION In Luke 15, we again see Jesus engaged in “table talk.” Tax collectors and sinners come to hear Him (v. 1), but the complaint from the Pharisees and scribes is that Jesus eats with them (v. 2). In…
There appears to be some allusion to Israel’s wilderness wanderings in Luke 15. When Jesus eats with publicans and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees “grumble” about it, as Israel did in the wilderness. The complaint in both cases, moreover, centers on food ?Ethe lack of food in the wilderness and…
There appears to be some allusion to Israel’s wilderness wanderings in Luke 15. When Jesus eats with publicans and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees “grumble” about it, as Israel did in the wilderness. The complaint in both cases, moreover, centers on food ?Ethe lack of food in the wilderness and…
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