Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
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James Jordan has suggested that the vision of new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-22:5) is arranged as a chiastic recasting of the creation week: A. Day 1: Light in the city, 21:10-11 B. Day 2: Boundaries and measurements of the city, 21:12-17 C. Day 3: Materials of the city, 21:18-21 D. Day…
The verb “show” ( deiknuo ) occurs eight times in Revelation, and the eight uses fall into a neat pattern. Twice at the beginning (1:1; 4:1) and twice at the end (22:6, 8), the verb is used with a generic object. God shows “things which must shortly take place” (1:1;…
In an essay on “barriers and bridges” in American religion, Stephen Warner emphasizes the role of music in building bridges, forging solidarity without requiring assent to a common set of propositions. He offers a florilegium of quotations from various scholars: “At an emotional level, there is something ‘deeper' about hearing…
William H. McNeill's Keeping Together in Time explores the role of “emotional bonding through rhythmic muscular movement” in history (52). The significance of the phenomenon occurred to him during military training in 1941: “A sense of pervasive movement in unison is what I recall; more specifically, strange sense of personal…
The final chapter of the Bible (Revelation 22:6-21) is a rapid series of speeches and dialogues, structured in fourfold parallelism. Each new section introduces a new speaker or speech with some form of “he said.” The speakers move from an angel to Jesus to the Spirit and bride. The chapter…
In a 2007 Bibliotheca Sacra article, Mark Hitchcock examines various theories about the identity of the seven heads of the beast in Revelation 17:9-11. It's been proposed that the number seven is purely symbolic of fulness, and that the heads are not to be identified with any historical characters. Hitchcock's…
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