Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Hebrews 10:34 There is an old Puritan dictum that goes, “Sit lightly on the world.” George MacDonald places it…
As Genesis unfolds, God chooses a line of promise out of the nations. One by one its offshoots are peeled away as the story zooms in on God’s chosen people, Israel. First, the line of Cain is peeled away as Cain is sent out from the presence of YHWH. Though…
The following article was an address given to Anselm Presbytery (CREC) in the Fall 2024. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray with me. Father of Heavenly Lights and fount of all Wisdom, guide us we pray, by your Word and Spirit,…
At my age, I’ve given up on the fantasy of “keeping up.” Much of my reading is now narrowly focused, research-reading in service of writing projects. If you want bibliography on the ontology of artifacts in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas (which you don’t), or the purity laws of Leviticus, or…
I have been reading, thinking, and writing about the Internet and its effects upon our identities, communities, polities, and discourses for nearly a copy of decades. In that time, I have encountered no book as perceptive on the subject as Antón Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature…
Identifying the men Paul refers to as “enemies of the cross” in Philippians 3:18 turns out to be relatively difficult. Peter O’Brian speaks of “all kinds of suggestions regarding their identity,” and offers a list of interpretations: “moral libertinists, behavioural materialists, orthodox Jews, lapsed or apostate Christians—because of persecution, Jewish…
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Karl Wojtya (aka, John Paul II) deftly charts the collapse of utilitarianism into egoism in Love and Responsibility (37-39): Utilitarianism makes pleasure the overriding aim of human action. But pleasure is a momentary good, and a good only for a particular person. A utilitarian might attempt to maximize the pleasure…
Joe Rigney sent along an unpublished paper on Galatians 2. He translates verses 15-16 this way: “We are Jews by nature and not ‘sinners’ from the Gentiles. Nevertheless, because we know that a ‘man of the works of the Law’ is not justified except through faith in Jesus Christ, even…
According to Paul, Peter feared “those of circumcision” (Galatians 2:12; Gr. tous ek peritomes ). Elsewhere in the context, Paul speaks of those who are “of nations sinners” (2:15), “of works of the law” (2:16) and “of the faith of Christ” (2:16). Each time, Paul uses the proposition ek ,…
Paul charges the Galatians with quickly “translating” from the one who called them to another gospel (Galatians 1:6). What is the otherness of this other gospel? Merit? Works righteousness? Wearing the badges of Judaism? In context, it must be most immediately related to Paul’s summary of Jesus’ achievement in 1:4:…
In his philosophical phase, Walker Percy meditated deeply on perception and knowledge, and their relationship to symbols and language. This superb passage is from a 1958 essay in the Journal of Philosophy : “If I see an object at some distance and do not quite recognize it, I may see…
No ought from is, say the philosophers. Says who? says Clifford Geertz ( The Interpretation Of Cultures (Basic Books Classics) ). Not, he points out, most people in most cultures most of the time. For them, ethos and ontology are inseparable: “Like bees who fly despite theories of aeronautics which…
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