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…
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K risten Thompson devotes several pages of her Apocalyptic Dread , a study of apocalyptic in contemporary film, analyzing Spielberg's 2005 remake of War of the Worlds . She points to the “film’s extensive references to 9/11 and terrorism as the new marker of dread in the twenty-first century.” She…
F elecia Wright McDuffie's To Our Bodies Turn We Then is a study of Donne's understanding of the body as “word and sacrament.” Drawing from Donne's poetry, sermons, and prose writing, she summarizes Donne's view of the human body as created, fallen, redeemed, and recreated. All along the way, McDuffie…
P utting “film noir ” and “musical” in the same sentence may seem absurd. If any film genre is sunlight and sentiment, seething with clappy optimism, it's the musical. And noir is something different. Sheri Biesen's Music in the Shadows shows that the two forms have cohabited for decades: “The…
W ho teaches your U.S.A. children how to choose their temple? What to love enough not to think two times?” These questions are posed in the broken English of Remy Maranthe, one of the Wheelchair Assassins who populate David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest . After Canada is forced into the…
C J Labuschagne points out in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible that “Exod 39:32–43 tells how the Tabernacle with all its equipment was presented to Moses, who inspected all the work and saw that the craftsmen had done their work according to the command of the Lord, and he…
C J Labuschagne ( Numerical Secrets of the Bible ) highlights the use of 11-fold literary patterns in the Pentateuch. The creation account, for instance, uses the formula “and God said” eleven times, concluding with the creation of Eve: “This coherence is found also in the eleventh divine utterance in…
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