Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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Psalm 78 is a wisdom Psalm about Ephraim turning into his brother, Manasseh. Ephraim’s failure to come to Jephthah’s aid (Judges 12:1-6) initiates the Psalm’s review of Israel’s stubbornness and rebellion (Psalm 78:8-10). Ephraim refused to take up arms (v. 9), a sign that Ephraim had forgotten the Exodus (v.…
I have a meditation on the “little apocalypse” of Isaiah 24 at the Trinity House web site today.
In his commentary on Revelation (in Greek Commentaries on Revelation (Ancient Christian Texts) , Oecumenius interprets the millennium as the period between Christ’s incarnation and His ascension. During “the time of the incarnation of the Lord, the devil was bound and was not able to resist the marks of the…
In Love and Responsibility , John Paul II pointed to the impossible possibility of betrothed love. On the one hand, “no person can be transferred or ceded to another. In the natural order, it is oriented towards self-perfection, towards the attainment of an ever greater fullness of existence - which…
Gregory Beale notes in The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God that the verb used in Genesis 2:15 for “put” is not the expected sim , but the rather rarer yanach , which bears some relation to the verb nacham , which…
Mark Mazetti’s The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth explains that Obama’s expansion of drone war is linked with his opposition to black sites and Bushian enhanced interrogation. The TNR reviewer writes: “To John Rizzo, the carryover general…
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