Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“We have a God who hides things because He loves to be sought out, chewed out and found out.” As Christians, we are rightly taught that we must not question God’s Word. The problem is that the Scriptures record many things which appear to have been given to us for…
The book of Revelation is a liturgy. John begins “in the Spirit” on the “Lord’s day” (1:10). Jesus appears, and Jesus tells him to record messages to seven churches, words of encouragement and rebuke, like the call to worship and confession at the beginning of a Christian liturgy. In chapter…
In my previous posts, I looked at the theme of creation as it is found in a sequence of psalms devoted to Yahweh’s Kingship (Psalms 93-100). Among other matters, these psalms declare that when the Kingdom of Israel’s God comes, it is the Kingdom of the world’s own Creator .…
The church in Corinth was a pastoral nightmare. Factionalism, sexual immorality, incipient syncretism, using the church as a stage for self-promotion, and denial of the final resurrection were just some of the problems. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he confronts each of these problems directly and in…
The first chapters of the Word of God have a poetic rhythm. This is used to discredit their accuracy as historical narrative, but the truth is that these same rhythms continue far beyond the book of Genesis. In fact, the later texts shed light on the frustratingly succinct account of…
Mr. Martian: What’s that there? Mr. Edison: (Edison holds up a standard, 60 watt lightbulb). It’s a lightbulb. Mr. Martian: A “lightbulb” you say? What exactly is a “lightbulb”? Mr. Edison: A lightbulb is an object used to illuminate a dark area, say a room. It’s made primarily of filament…
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Robert Wilken ( The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought ) has written that “Eusebius directed attention, for the first time in Christian history, to the religious and theological significance of space.” In describing the church of the Resurrection, he uses “a sacral vocabulary that has few…
In a 1959 article “Christian Envy of the Temple,” H. Nibley points out that the early Christians derived their liturgical theology from the temple: “They boast that the Church possesses all the physical properties of the Temple-the oil, the myrrh, the altar, the incense, hymns, priestly robes, etc., everything, in…
Truth-telling has come to be seen as mean-spirited, bigoted, nasty. Truth-telling is hateful, we have come to believe. Soothing lies are often preferred. Solomon sees things different. “A lying tongue hates those it crushes” (Proverbs 26:27). That carries two implications, each of which has a converse. First, it indicates that…
PROVERBS 26:22 Language is a constant theme of the Proverbs. Wisdom is skill, and one of the central skills a wise person must learn is skill in speech. This skill has not only to do with speaking the truth, but even more with questions of tone and timing. Wisdom is…
Angeliki E. Laiou has another revealing article in the Wealth and Poverty volume cited earlier. She notes the regular warnings and even condemnations of commerce in the patristic literature, and goes on to examine medieval and Byzantine hagiography for the same themes. She is surprised to find a fairly positive…
An article by A. Edward Siecienski (in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society (Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History) ) raises the question of the balance between liturgical splendor and poverty relief in the early church. He points out that even John Chrysostom, who thundered so…
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