Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Should anthropological categories and tools be applied to Judaism? Seems a narrow and academic question, of interest to maybe ten people on the planet. It's one of the many virtues of Howard Eilberg-Schwartz's 1990 The Savage In Judaism to show that the question is a central one in the origins…
Christians are often accused of being obsessed with sexual sin. Why can't two people, of whatever sex, do whatever they please in the enclosure of their own room? Who is hurt if a guy wants to get off looking at tantalizing pictures and videos on his computer? What's the big…
“No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house” (Mark 3:27 NKJV). Much commentary on the Revelation seems oblivious to its allusions to the Pentateuch (although there are many that do enlighten us…
Leigh M. Trevaskis's 2011 monograph, Holiness, Ethics and Ritual in Leviticus , is an outstanding contribution to the study of Leviticus. His main thesis is directed at the world of Old Testament scholarship, in which there is a consensus that the ritual laws of Leviticus 1-16 come from a school…
Richard Ounsworth begins his Joshua Typology in the New Testament with an excellent discussion of what he calls "ontological" typology, which he handily summarizes in four points. Typology involves "correspondences between real historical events, personalities, institutions, etc. described in scripture," a correspondence that is discerned (not created) by the reader…
Baylor University Press is sponsoring a reception to celebrate the official release of Peter Leithart's Gratitude: An Intellectual History . The reception will be held at the First Things offices in Manhattan on Thursday, March 6, at 6 PM. For more details, click here .
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Thomas Aquinas explained the Triune Persons as subsistent relations: “As to essence, the Father is in the Son because the Father is his essence and he shares it with the Son without any change taking place in himself” ( ST I, 42). Stephen Long explains Thomas’s claim that Father, Son…
For the past five years, I have blogged here at First Things . I was surprised and grateful when Matt Schmitz first offered me this prominent venue, and I remain humbled at the privilege and the astonishing freedom I've had to write and publish to my heart's content. A huge…
Every Friday, I compile snippets into a potpourri of musings and mutterings, served up in a Friday Flurry (not available at DQ). God made us to be knowers. We long to know. Esther Meek argues ( Longing to Know ) that the frustration of this desire is one of the…
The following is an extract from chapter 1 of my Against Christianity (Canon Press, 2003). 1 The Bible never mentions Christianity. It does not preach Christianity, nor does it encourage us to preach Christianity. Paul did not preach Christianity, nor did any of the other apostles. During centuries when the…
A few reflections on Barth’s discussion of the Trinity in Church Dogmatics 1.1, ch 10. 1) Barth insists that Trinitarian theology developed not as a qualification of monotheism but as a way of defending monotheism: “Christian monotheism was and is also and precisely the point also and precisely in the…
In his book on giving and forgiving ( Free of Charge ), Miroslav Volf summarizes Luther's metaphor of the "flow" of God's love. Human love sometimes sucks the life and love out of us, but not God's love. Rather, as Luther says, "it flows forth and bestows good" (quoted 49).…
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