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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The sea beast wages war against the saints (Revelation 13:7), assisted by the land beast (13:11-15), also known as the “false prophet” (16:13; 19:20; 20:10). That the land beast is a prophet gives us a big clue to what’s happening. Prophets end and initiate covenants; prophets are the sacred architects…
In the Levitical law, the priests received two particular portions of each peace offering: the “wave offering” of the breast and the “heave offering” (or better, “contribution”) of the right thigh. The purpose of this essay is to attempt to determine the reason why the second of these, the thigh,…
Robert Pogue Harrison glances at his father’s college yearbook and finds that “twelve-year-old boys looked like little adults, their faces furrowed by the depths of time” ( Juvenescence , x). We’re younger now: “the first-world face of today remains callow, even as it withers away with age, never attaining the…
Neoteny comes from two Greek words, “new” and “hold.” As Robert Pogue Harrison defines it ( Juvenescence , 18), evolutionary biology speaks of neoteny as the “persistence of fetal, larval, or juvenile features in adult organisms.” Harrison means something more broader, “a modified type of development that brings juvenile traits…
John’s description of the land beast and his work in Revelation 13:11-15 is organized in a fairly neat chiasm: A. Another beast like a lamb, speaking as a dragon, 13:11 B. He has the authority of the first beast, 13:12a C. He makes land-dwellers worship the first beast, who was…
Robert McAfee Brown summarizes The Spirit of Protestantism as “an openness to the judging and renewing activity of the living God made known in Jesus Christ.” It’s a willingness to “submit to the corrective activity of God,” and “to live at risk.” Protestantism claims that it’s only in “constant renewal…
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