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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In his fascinating Faith of Our Fathers , Chan Kei Thong points to many biblical images embedded in Chinese characters. His argument could be made even stronger by looking at Hebrew terminology. For instance, he says of the character “zui,” which means sin, that “The top part is . .…
At the beginning of the Great Sacrifice performed by the Chinese emperor for centuries, singers sang the song of creation, addressed to the “Sovereign Lord” known as “Shang Di”: “Of old in the beginning, there was the great chaos, without form and dark. The five planets had not begun to…
One of the differences between those associated with “Federal Vision” theology and those opposed to it is a difference of theological imagination. The opponents operate with a theological imagination that distinguishes and clarifies; ontology is distinguished from relationality, nature from supernature, ecclesiology from soteriology. On the other side are theologians…
According to Adolf Loos, a turn of the 20th-century Viennese architect and critic, modern style combines beauty and practicality. Both are necessary: “By beautiful, what we mean is that something has achieved fullness, completion. But no useless, impractical object can really be described as ‘full’ or ‘complete.’” One can imagine…
Some initial observations on Nobuyoshi Kiuchi’s recent commentary on Leviticus in the Apollos series from IVP. 1) Kiuchi intriguingly translates hata and hatta’t , traditionally rendered in terms of “sin” or “purification” in terms of “hiding”: ” hata and hatta’t mean ‘to hide oneself’ and the condition of ‘hiding oneself,’…
A student points out that Hebrews 1-2:4 contains seven quotations from the Old Testament. Through these seven words, God speaks His Son as the new creation.
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