Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When I wrote my commentary on Ecclesiastes A Table in the Mist I took Eccl. 11:1-2 as a reference to the risk of international trade. It sure did seem to me like a reference to Solomon’s risky trade with other nations. Israel exported grain (bread) and Solomon’s ships returned to…
When we read an alphabetical psalm in English, we miss the fact that each verse begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I have found one way to get around this, which is for the leader to announce something relevant about each letter before reading his half of…
How does the Lord’s Supper proclaim the death of Jesus until He comes? (1 Corinthians 11:26). Historically, liturgists have attempted to locate some act in the rite of the Supper that corresponds to the death of Jesus: the fraction (breaking of bread), or the fact that bread and wine are…
These notes are posted here by request. We all now live in the age of slob worship thanks to the “sixties.” I never experienced sitting for prayer until 20 years ago. Jesus was unhappy when His disciples could not watch and pray for one hour. Today’s slob Christians complain if…
On September 11, 2001, Jesus brought judgment upon the United States of America. Following His normal procedure, He used an even more evil force to do it (Habakkuk 1-3). The warning Jesus gives throughout the Bible to those He uses to punish others is that they need to repent, or…
Because of Donald Trump, the “Birther” issue is heating up. It is not going away, and is only part of a larger cluster of issues in regard to the President. Virtually all of the relevant documents concerning who he is and where he has been, have been suppressed, at great…
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Addressing the question of whether God is “object” to us, Jenson says that objectivity is essential to conversation: “In all true mutual discourse . . . each must be both subject for and object of the other.  As I am present to address you, I am a subject and you…
Athanasius’ letter to Amun (354) is a meditation on purity.  Defilement, he argues, occurs “when we commit sin, that foulest of things.”  That is what Jesus meant when He said that we are defiled by what comes out - out of the heart . Bodily functions, by contrast, do not…
A fragment of Athanasius’ Easter Letter #22: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who took upon Him to die for us all, stretched forth His hands, not somewhere on the earth beneath, but in the air itself, in order that the salvation effected by the Cross might be shown to be for…
INTRODUCTION With the plotters closing in on Him, Jesus celebrates the Passover with His disciples, but in the process He transforms it into a meal centered on the gift of His body and blood and celebrating the cutting of a new covenant. THE TEXT “Now on the first day of the…
The poor you will always have with you, Jesus says in defending the woman’s “wasteful” devotion, but you won’t always have me. The key to understanding this is to recognize that Jesus speaks of the woman pouring oil on His “body.”  The key is to recognize the double body of…
Comparing the beginning and end of Matthew’s passion narrative (Matthew 26:1-16; 28:1-20), Daniel Patte notes that both involve a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.  But the balance of that confrontation shifts; Jesus begins in apparent passivity (“delivered up”), but in the resurrection story He is the one making…
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