Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first part of this essay, I argued that the story of the covenant is what unifies and grounds the laws in the book of Deuteronomy. In the third section of this essay, as part of my argument that Deuteronomy 14:1-21 forms a distinct pericope, I claimed that these…
Paul ends 1 Timothy with convicting warnings about the temptations of wealth and the danger of pursuing wealth. Godliness involves contentment and gratitude for the basics – food and clothing (1 Timothy 6:8). To reinforce the point, Paul reminds Timothy that we came into the world without anything, which is…
Like Marx himself, the Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre was a firm believer in the dictum that “the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism,” though he dissented from Marx’s prior claim that the criticism of religion is essentially complete. He includes a vicious, sarcastic, Marxist diatribe against the…
This week, Trinity House fellows James Jordan, Jeff Meyers, Rich Bledsoe, and Peter Leithart will be lecturing in Niceville, Florida, at the Biblical Horizons Summer Conference. Fore more information, check the Biblical Horizons web site.
Fire seems to be a motif in Isaiah 6. The chapter opens “in the year that king Uzziah died,” and we know that Uzziah died a leper because he tried to burn incense in the temple against the law of God. And in this context, in the year king Uzziah…
According to the medieval theory of the "Quadriga" or the "fourfold sense" of Scripture, each passage of Scripture has four dimensions of meaning. Protestants generally cast a suspicious eye on this "method" of reading. That's a mistake. It's a handy guide to the questions we should always ask as we…
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At the Retreat organized by the asylum reformer Samuel Tuke, the inmates would occasionally enjoy social occasions where the rules of etiquette would be strictly observed. In Tuke’s own description, they would “dress in their best clothes, and vie with each other in politeness and propriety. The best fare is…
Johann Arndt (1555-1621), one of theleaders of German Pietism, wrote of baptism: “This is the true new birth and the new creature that appears before God’s face, pure and holy, cleaned and purified through the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit without any blemish. So perfect is this washing…
In sorting through questions about efficacy of baptism, it’s important to realize that terms are used differently by various theologians. Chemnitz, for instance, claims that baptism has a twofold effect, “regeneration and renewal.” The very fact that he describes these as distinct effects should alert us to the fact that…
Baptism is made by word and water, Luther says. But the word is not the word of the minister that blesses the water, but the authorizing word of Jesus: “God’s word beside and with the water, which is not something we have invented or dreamed up, but is rather the…
The purpose of the proclamation of the Word of Life, John says, is to extend the fellowship of the apostles to include others; and this means to include others within the community – the sharing of things, and particularly the sharing of life – that the apostles have with the…
1) This is a oddly rambling opening to a letter. It starts with a relative pronoun, and doesn’t get to a finite verb until verse 3. Plus, it leaves a number of things initially unexplained. “That which” – what does this refer to? We don’t know for a while. “From…
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