Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Creationism is debated widely in the US, especially when it comes to teaching creation as an alternative theory of origins in public schools. Every few months, there’s another poll showing that many Americans still believe Ussher’s claim that the world was created around 4000 BC, which always elicits a contemptuous…
Walker Percy died in 1990, but his six published novels and his collections of essays are more relevant than when he wrote them. Percy was an American Dostoevsky, and that was no accident. “The European novels,” he says in a 1974 interview, “are more philosophical, more novels of ideas.” Dostoevsky,…
The Spirit is God’s agent for renewing the creation, for restoring bonds between nations, for knitting together people into the body of Christ. The Spirit is the renewer of the world, and the bond of all relations. That means that if you want your family to be knit together, if…
In their basic physical sense , the verbs translated as "persecute" in the Bible mean “chase” or “pursue,” and that fits the context quite naturally. As Pharaoh “pursued” (LXX, dioko ; Heb. radaph ) Israel into the wilderness, for example, so the dragon chases the woman back to her place…
Seng-Kong Tan’s Fullness Received and Returned is a densely argued, thoroughly researched, contextually sensitive study of participation in the soteriology of Jonathan Edwards. Along the way, Tan deals with many of the central themes in Edwards’s theology. As with many recent studies of Edwards, Tan’s monograph demonstrates both Edwards’s creativity…
The title of James Joyce’s first novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man indicates that it is a bildungsroman , a story of formation that describes the formative experiences of a poet who aspires to artistic greatness. The education described is Joyce’s own. The novel recounts the failing…
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This passage is one of a series of challenges that the ?messenger of the Lord?Eissues to the people and priests of Israel. Verses 6-14 are specifically directed to the priests (v. 6). The entire passage is organized in a loosely chiastic structure: A. The Priests dishonor their Father and master,…
Is the issue of the theory of signs perhaps simply the question of where one places the distinction of signifier/signified? In Christian creationist perspective, everything created is signifier of God. This is its most fundamental essence and purpose, to show forth the glory of creator. Thus, the line separating signifier…
INTRODUCTION Pentecost is a new beginning, when the Spirit that hovered over the waters of the first creation forms the church into a new creation (Genesis 1:2). Pentecost is also a reversal of Babel, as the nations divided by tongues are reunited by a miracle of tongues. Pentecost is the…
The following includes some material from published essays, but also includes new material. In his third lecture on the ?Essence of Christianity,?Edelivered at the turn of the century, Adolf von Harnack expressed a common modern understanding of the nature of Christianity: “Anyone who wants to know what the kingdom of…
Covenant theology has great promise: it highlights the fact that redemption takes place in the real world, that redemption involves the creation of a new community, and that the community is necessarily marked out by signs, rites, words, conduct. But the language of covenant theology sometimes leaves the impression that…
The following are tentative notes, reflections, criticisms, and interactions with Calvin?s understanding of sacraments in general in Book 4 of the Institutes. 4.14.1 Calvin calls the sacraments ?another aid to our faith related to the preaching of the gospel.?E Several questions occur to me. First, what are the other ?aids…
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