Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
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Thanksgiving was clearly a part of the liturgical life of the early Christians. In talking about tongues, Paul says that one who does not know the tongue cannot join in the “Amen” at the eucharistia , since he cannot understand what has been said (1 Corinthians 14:16). Paul uses the…
The history of the world, proponents of liberalism argue, is the history of the struggle for freedom, the struggle between freedom and slavery. Democracy also sees history as a struggle, in this case the struggle to establish the power of the people. As Ruszard Legutko ( Demon in Democracy )…
Below is a portion of my opening comments at an ETS session on "public legacies of the Reformation," presented on November 16, 2017. I was asked to identify the legacies of the Reformation that help us face the emerging challenges of the present day . Before I attempt to answer,…
Ryszard Legutko's The Demon in Democracy is a bracing read. Legutko, a Polish philosopher and member of the European Parliament, has lived under both communism and liberalism, and so is unusually well-positioned to articulate his counter-intuitive thesis: "both attitudes - the communist and the liberal-democratic - are linked by .…
Locke is often seen as the heir to Reformation political theology. Ruben Alvarado ( Calvin and the Whigs ) begs to differ. Locke was waiting in the wings when Calvinist politics eroded. He writes: "Puritans founded some of the chief colonies in America, those of New England, and their influence…
While in North Korea, President Trump held back on schoolyard insults to Kim Jong-un, and focused on the damage that Kim's regime has caused to North Koreans : "Far from valuing its people as equal citizens, this cruel dictatorship measures them, scores them, and ranks them based on the most…
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