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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Barth issues a sharp caution for those who frequently condemn the Reformed emphasis on the “primacy of the intellect” ( CD 1.1): “What man does when he uses this faculty, when he thinks and tries to understand, can in fact be indolence, hubris or both like any other human self-determination.…
I’ve wondered why the earliest and some of the greatest Arthurian legends were first written down by Frenchmen (Chretien de Troyes, eg). Turns out, the answer is pretty simple. As Richard Barber explains in his The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief , “In the late eleventh century, the Normans overran…
The Bible gives a lot of attention to sacred architecture. About 1/3 of the book of Exodus is a detailed and repetitive description of the dimensions and furnishings of the tabernacle. We have two descriptions of the temple of Solomon, in 1 Kings 6-8 and 2 Chronicles 1-7. The last…
Deuteronomy 12:10-12 Deuteronomy 12 forms an important part of the background for the narrative of the temple-building in 1 Kings. Here, the Lord promises to give rest to Israel, and in 1 Kings 5 Solomon tells Hiram that Israel now has rest from their enemies around them. In Deuteronomy 12,…
This from the department of corrections: Contrary to what I stated in the sermon outline posted earlier in the week, the word ?finish?E(KLH) is used seven times in these chapters, as Solomon completes each stage of the ?house.?E This is obscured by the NASB translation, for in one place a…
This from the department of corrections: Contrary to what I stated in the sermon outline posted earlier in the week, the word ?finish?E(KLH) is used seven times in these chapters, as Solomon completes each stage of the ?house.?E This is obscured by the NASB translation, for in one place a…
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