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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2 Kings 20:7: The Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. Hezekiah is on his deathbed, and it’s something of a surprise that he is suffering from nothing more serious than a boil. And then we’re surprised again…
John 12:24: Jesus said, Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. We are not ordaining you today. We are not laying hands on you. But we are…
Easter is about hope, not only hope for the future, but hope realized in the present. The Lord promised that Abraham’s seed would be like the stars of heaven. The point was not simply that Abraham’s seed would be numerous, though they are and will be. The point was that…
A candidate for ministry who holds to a Lutheran view of the real presence and a Calvinist view of double predestination would be welcome in neither Lutheran nor Reformed churches. What does that say about Protestantism? Are the different doctrinal and confessional systems so airtight that this kind of mix-and-match…
Why are liturgical/sacramental Calvinists always accused of heading toward “Rome”? Why is it never said, “He’s on the road to Wittenberg”? To ask the question is to answer it: “Road to Wittenberg” sounds so, well, so Protestant , and hardly serves the rhetorical needs of those who want to scare…
The story of the Bible is the death and resurrection of the Christ, but often there is an important nuance to this story-line. The house of Ahab is not destroyed during the reign of Ahab, but during the reign of his son Jehoram, the best of the Omrides (2 Kings…
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