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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The always-fascinating Oliver Sacks takes a break from his human patients to review several recent and old books on earthworms, jelly-fish, and plants in the NYRB . One is Daniel Chamovitz’s recent What A Plant Knows . Sacks writes, “We all distinguish between plants and animals. We understand that plants,…
John sees two signs in heaven (Revelation 12), a woman and a dragon. Sharply different as they are, John’s language brings out their similarities. 1) Both are called semeion , vv. 1, 3. 2) John uses the passive ophthe to introduce both, vv. 1, 3. 3) Both are signs in…
In Who’s Afraid of Relativism? , his recent brief for Christian pragmatism as a philosophy of contingency and creaturehood, James KA Smith summarizes a wonderful little analogy from Wittgenstein: “Language [is] a city. While referentialist theories of meaning might recognize that there could be other uses of language, they will…
Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture will show her latest documentary film, Breeders: A Subclass of Women? , at Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, on the evening of Saturday, April 5. The event is co-sponsored by Trinity House and Beeson Divinity School. For more information, click here .
J.N. Adams takes up a classic question about the history of Latin in his Social Variation and the Latin Language : How did the Romance languages emerge from Latin? It’s been thought that the Romance languages came from changes in Latin pronunciation and grammar at the lower levels of Roman…
1 Samuel 14 records the second of Saul’s three falls: He sins when he sacrifices impetuously without waiting for Samuel (ch. 13), when he attacks Jonathan for eating during a battle (ch. 14), when he refuses to carry out the ban against the Amalekites (ch. 15). Chapter 14 is also…
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