Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
Showing page 272 of 309
Showing page 40 of 43
In a 2011 JBL article, Kyle Harper examines the usage of the Greek word porneia from its classical uses through the New Testament and into the early church. He hopes to specify its meaning, since the usual English translation as “sexual immorality” is “so vague” that it “inevitable threatens to…
In his contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions , Philippe Borgeaud explores ancient comparative anthropology, the ways in which Greeks used other cultures as “mirrors.” Along the way (269-70), he discusses Porphyry’s De Abstinentia , which he compares to Mary Douglas’s classic Purity and Danger . For…
Sketching a theological account in support of Reformed ressourcement in their Reformed Catholicity , Michael Allen and Scott Swain appeal to the argument of Reinhold Hutter’s Suffering Divine Things . Hutter tries to avoid both a notion of “strict continuation” between the church and the incarnate Christ and a Barthian…
Robert Louis Wilken, noted church historian and Chairman of the Board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, will deliver the second annual Nevin Lectures on February 20-21, at the Hodges Chapel of the Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama. Wilken will give three lectures on “The Catholic Roots of…
In his study of Justification in Earlier Medieval Theology , Charles Carlson concludes that early medieval commentators on Paul did not give any special attention to justification. For most of the early scholastics, “justification” was a synonym for the remission of sins, and prior to the thirteenth century it was…
Ancient Babylonian temples were busy places. There were butchers and cooks for the meat, bakers for the bread and brewers of beer. The temple was supplied by farmers and milkmen, fishermen, oxherds, orchard keepers. Some were specialists in setting the table of the god, and others artisans who work with…
Showing page 477 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
