Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Bible, all the world is a stage, but like the Tabernacle, that stage moves around a lot. David’s defeat of Goliath can only be fully understood as liturgy fulfilled in history. Liturgy, as a sacrifice of praise, is the step-by-step process of resolving a conflict. It relinquishes all…
Aristotle isn’t fundamentally wrong about friendship, nor is the long tradition that follows him. But you might not gather that by reading some of the more pointed critics of the classical conception of friendship. I think, however, that the classical view is not only viable but taken up and fulfilled…
#13 in Theopolis Papers, Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World It is time for me to “cast off” integration, the way a knitter removes a completed scarf from the needles. I want to bring my quest concerning integration to a decent closure, though my happy quest for reality continues. With…
Below are some notes on a particular sub-theme of Daniel 3, namely the downfall of Babylon’s liturgy. First up, a few words on our text’s literary construction. One of the most conspicuous features of Dan. 3 is its author’s love of lists . Personnel are listed (vs. 2, 3, 27),…
Few things in Scripture, few things in the Christian life, are more familiar than the Lord’s Prayer. Sunday after Sunday, we pray these words together with our brothers and sisters. At home, alone or with our families, we pray this prayer daily, as Jesus taught us (Luke 11:2: “When you…
At the 2019 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, the denominational delegates considered a number of official overtures (requests for action from the regional parts of the denomination) relating to issues of gender and sexuality. The PCA is conservative. As evidence of this, the assembly passed a resolution…
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Uriah Y Kim reviews my Kings commentary in a recent issue of Reviews in Religion and Theology . He’s got some criticisms, but overall it’s a fair review. A couple of responses on specific points: 1) He thinks my contention that there is a “seventh-king” pattern is suspect; my counting…
Richard Saller defines patronage by three features (summarized by Griffin): “(1) it involves the reciprocal exchange of goods and services; (2) that it is a personal relationship of some duration; (3) that it is asymmetrical, in the sense that the two parties are of unequal status and offer different kinds…
Griffin begins her essay: “The exchange of beneficia - gifts and services - was an important feature of Greek and Roman society at all periods. Its prominence was reflected in the number of philosophical works that analyzed the phenomenon. From the fourth century B.C. onwards, euergesia and charis became subjects…
Miriam Griffin has a richly detailed discussion of Seneca’s de Beneficiis in a 2003 issue of The Journal of Roman Studies . The article discusses the appropriateness of “patronage system” as a description of Roman social relations, Seneca’s use of exaggeration for moral effect, the and similarities between Seneca and…
Seneca found Chrysippus’s treatment of the Three Graces too subtle: He was a great man but “a Greek, whose intellect, too sharply pointed, is often bent and turned back upon itself; even when it seems to be in earnest it only pricks, but does not pierce.” Seneca himself found in…
In his Lectures on Ethics, Kant says that ingratitude is among the vices that “are the essence of vileness and wickedness.” He adds, “It is inhuman to hate and persecute one from whom we have reaped a benefit, and if such conduct were the rule it would cause untold harm.…
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