Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…
Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…
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In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…
Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…
Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…
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The Psalmist complains that the “arrogant” lie about him (Psalm 119:69), and these same arrogant have “fat” hearts (v. 70). Fat is normally a positive description in the Bible. Fat is a sign of prosperity; you want your land to be fat and your hills to drip with fatness. I…
Patricia Ryberg, Assistant Professor of Biology at Park University has been studying tree fossils buried under a mile of ice in the Antarctic. She discovered that “the pattern of growth in the Antarctic tree samples showed habits typically associated with evergreen trees. However, the fossilized leaf impressions demonstrated what appeared…
L. Michael Morales’ The Tabernacle Pre-Figured examines a cluster of related themes in the narrative texts of Genesis. The rites of Torah follow the cosmic pattern established in creation, in which one moves through the waters of death to the cosmic mountain in order to offer worship to God the…
Morales ( The Tabernacle Pre-Figured ) argues that the trajectory of the creation account in Genesis 1 has not been fully appreciated because the import of the opening verses have not been fully appreciated: “that emphasis is stark enough to serve as the foil for the six days of creation…
Water ordeals are a common mythical and ritual theme in the Ancient Near east. Hostile waters threaten the life of someone who is trying to cross, and the fact that the person survives the ordeal is a judgment in his favor, a declaration of innocence. Morales ( The Tabernacle Pre-Figured…
Morales’s The Tabernacle Pre-Figured is an insightful study of the “cosmic mountain ideology” in the Bible, which Morales understands in terms of a progress through the dangerous waters of chaos to the mountain of the Lord’s house for the purpose of worship. At points, though, Morales collapses and conflates when…
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