Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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Forty days after Jesus rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven to take His place at the right hand of the Father (Acts 1:3), fulfilling the promise of Psalm 110. The Psalm is patterned as three sets of seven clauses. Verses 1-2 make up the first sequence, verses 3-4…
In his 2007 encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi , Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI observes that the experience of loving and being loved is a moment of “redemption.” Love gives new meaning, new joy, new energy. Every love is a new birth. We long and hope for love. We want it…
Oliver O’Donovan ( Ways of Judgment , 26-7) cites Hegel’s claim that every wrong is “infinite” and so “demands infinite judgment.” He takes this to mean that “the victim demands that the wrong should become the whole business of the universe.” The victim thinks he can “command the world” if…
Moses informs the congregation of Israel about what’s needed for the tabernacle (Exodus 35:4-19), and the congregation goes off to finds things to contribute (Exodus 35:20). Yahweh speaks to Moses, and Moses acts, bringing the word of Yahweh to fulfillment. Now Moses speaks the word of Yahweh to the people,…
When Moses demands that Pharaoh let Yahweh’s people go into the wilderness to celebrate a feast, Pharaoh calls for his magicians, sorcery, and wise men (7:11; wise men is chakamiym ). Moses defeats those wise men, and the motif of wisdom goes subterranean for twenty-odd chapters. When it re-emerges, the…
An Easter homily from 2009 . Why do you seek the living among the dead? That was the angel’s question to the women who came to the tomb on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead of finding Jesus, they found an empty tomb with the stone rolled away. Confused and…
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