Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
(continued from previous issue) Between 30 and 50 What did the Levites do between age 30 and 50? Numbers 4 shows us that they carried the house of God on their shoulders. Lifting up the Lord is an image of worship in the Bible, and David’s restructuring of the Levites…
When God created the world, He created two lands: the Throne-land of Eden (entered through the sanctuary-garden, the Garden of Eden), and the Outlying Lands, such as the lands of Havilah and Cush. This essentially bi-polar world is the world of the Old Creation, and it continued to exist until…
Color is inescapable, except for those who are color blind. In our church architecture, we either employ color schemes that are helpful to worship, or we employ color schemes that are not helpful. Of course, this assertion merely begs the question: What color schemes are most helpful. God showed interest…
As I noted in an earlier article in Rite Reasons , the Church Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine all claimed that baptism inducts the baptized person into membership in the royal priesthood of the church, and Thomas Aquinas said that baptism, by imprinting an indelible “character” on the soul, confers…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
In my Preliminary Commentary on Daniel , which many of you have obtained, I argued in chapter 13 that the four monsters called up from the sea by the evangelistic work of the four winds (the saints) represented the deep hatred of God that evangelistic work brings to the fore…
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We can fill out Paul's exhortation to give thanks for all things in all circumstances concretely by bringing it more explicitly into connection with the liturgy of the todah and the Eucharist. Giving thanks is a pattern of acknowledgement, recital, memorial, and feast. Or: we give thanks when we take,…
The combined sacrificial-verbal todah (thank offering) carries over directly into the Christian Supper. The main elements of the ancient Israelite rite are present, either in the New Testament or in very early post-apostolic celebrations of the Eucharist. 1) Jesus instructs his disciples to “do this” – not only to eat…
Most English translations introduce the terminology of “thanks” in of Leviticus, as a translation of todah (Lev 7:11-15), a noun derived from yadah . In the Levitical system, todah does not refer to emotions or verbal expressions of gratitude but to a sacrificial ritual, a specific form of the peace…
The following is an excerpt from my commentary on 1-3 John, From Behind the Veil . The chapter division in our Bibles does not follow the flow of John’s argument in 1 John, which slips past the end of chapter 1 and flows into the beginning of chapter 2. The…
“What is thanks?” Scripture answers that thanks is neither an emotion nor a virtue. [1] It is accompanied by emotions, and as we get to the New Testament it broadens to become a tone or stance of life, something like a meta-virtue. Fundamentally, thanks is a name, a ritual, and…
Brian Jones argues that defenses of capitalism are anthropologically thin. They "need a more humane anthropology, sensitive to man’s social and communal nature, lest they forget to ask the crucial question of what economics is for." He cites a 2002 article from the American Spectator to illustrate the reductive character…
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