Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Place names become fraught with meaning by association with people and events. The name “Wittenberg” calls to mind Luther and the Reformation for Protestants and Catholics alike. Geneva has a wider range of associations, but the Reformation Wall, with its four main statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza,…
“…a mystery without a solution, a horror story without savagery, a nightmare in which all the watches stop at noonday…” The Bestial Gardens of Men Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” (Luke 23:30) The following lines by Edgar Allan Poe,…
2 Samuel 11-12, which record David’s sin with Bathsheba and its aftermath, is structured chiastically: This arrangement highlights several things about the episode. It reinforces what is obvious from even a casual reading, that the transition in the story occurs with Nathan’s confrontation of David’s sin and David’s confession. Up…
Medieval bestiaries are packed with quaintly inaccurate information about animals, birds, and other created things. Foxes and snakes are devilish critters; stags, pelicans and elephants are Christlike in their various ways. Of course, the medievals picked this up from the Bible, where bestiary observations are fairly common. “Go to the…
What do Reformational Catholicism and craft beer have in common? The question seems to beg for a punchline. Better yet, it would be pretty good clickbait for an article on Katharina von Bora’s “spirited” contribution that helped spark the Protestant Reformation. Well, this is no joke and I am certainly…
Suffering Defined Suffering happens. We witness it all around us and experience it in our lives. It often comes from forces beyond our control. Suffering is inscrutable; it strikes unexpectedly, on a bright summer day or a cold winter night. We lament and are bewildered by suffering. But we are…
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Chemnitz has some interesting comments on how the Reformers handled the patristic usage of ?justification,?Ewhich did not match their own usage. He admits that the ?fathers mostly take the word ?justify?Efor the renewal,?Ewhich is not the Reformation definition of ?justify,?Ebut he commends the fathers for those places ?where they according…
Chemnitz cites the views of the German Roman Catholic Johann Gropper (1503-59). According to Chemnitz, he ?argues at great length that Christ by his obedience did not merit only the remission of sins but also the Spirit of renewal; and that God remits sins to no one without at the…
John 6:56: ?He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him?E This morning we have examined the Bible?s teaching on the mutual indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity. The Persons are distinct from each other, and not reducible to each other; the…
God created our bodies; He will redeem our bodies and raise them from the dead; and in between He calls us to ?present the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness?Eand to ?offer your bodies as living sacrifices.?EOur bodies are gifts from God, and we should offer them for…
INTRODUCTION We?ve been looking at Christian worship in the light of Scriptural patterns of sacrifice. This gives us an overall order or sequence of worship. In this session, I want to examine two main issues: First, the Trinitarian basis of worship, and second, the dialogic structure of worship. These are…
Thinking about perichoresis or about Gregory Nazianzen’s famous “No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendour of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one” always makes me think of Escher. I find now that…
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