Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen. 1:28). In Christian worldview…
"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…
One of the important themes of the synoptic gospels is Jesus’ rejection of Israel and the transfer of God’s favor to the New Israel, the Church. A clear statement of this theme is found in the parable of the vineyard owner in Matthew 21:33-46. Jesus explained the meaning of the…
11. There is a type of person [a generation] who curses his father, And does not bless his mother. 12. There is a type who is pure in his own eyes, Yet not washed from his filthiness [manure]. 13. There is a type — oh how lofty are his eyes!…
Under the Levitical law, whole-burnt offerings from the herd and flock had to be male. No such specification is made with respect to birds (cf. Lev. 5:7-10). Why did the Lord demand that only males be offered as whole-burnt offerings? The easy answer is that the whole-burnt offering typified Christ,…
Matthew 2:13-23 has a tripartite structure, reporting briefly three events of the early years of Jesus’ life. Matthew ends his narrative of each event with a "fulfillment formula." Jesus’ flight to Egypt and His Exodus back into Israel was a fulfillment of Hosea’s words, "Out of Egypt I call my…
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For Thomas, the advantage of explicating the Trinity by reference to knowing and willing was that these are two human processes that remain within the soul.  They remain within the realm of praxis. Jenson notes that the great achievement of Barth’s Trinitarian theology is to start elsewhere, not with “self-contained”…
Gregory of Nyssa identifies Arianism as a form of tragic metaphysics.  They go astray because they “define God’s being by its having no beginning, rather than by its having no end . . . . If they must divide eternity, let them reverse their doctrine and find that mark of…
Is God’s being in His becoming?  We might not want to say that.  But we can’t avoid the question, if we want to continue the patristic project of “evangelizing metaphysics.” For the Greeks, Jenson writes, “Being” is “what satisfies the mind’s longing for absolute assurance, for transcendence over time’s surprises.”…
Definitely not this either: “there is properly no mutual love between the Father and Son, for this would presuppose two acts” and “within the Trinity there is no reciprocal ‘Thou.’”
Barth did not see Nazism as a reaction to or restriction on the untrammeled freedom of choice celebrated by modern liberals.  On the contrary, it was itself the product of the same “false concept of freedom” that shaped post-Enlightenment Europe. If freedom means life “in free competition of persons, systems,…
Barth argues that the Trinity is not a challenge or a qualification of monotheism, but the only true form of monotheism.  Antitrinitarianism always collapses either into the denial of God’s revelation or of God’s unity. Denial of revelation because “To the degree that it maintains the unity of God it…
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