Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World As I mentioned above, the history of Israel involved several centuries as a church-without-a-culture, and then several centuries as a culture-without-a-city. To be sure, there was an informal culture around the church of the Patriarchs, but the civilization of free farmers…
In the Reformation Tradition we baptize both professing believers and their children. In the case of infants it is now commonly insisted that this is done because the children are already in covenant with God. Baptism is a sign and seal of a previously existing reality. Despite the popularity of…
Concerning Sex & the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer…
In 27.2, the Westminster Confession says that because of the “spiritual relation” between sacraments and the things they represent, “the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.” Applied to baptism, this means that when the Bible says that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6), it…
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The announcement of Obama’s Peace Prize was greeted with gasps, but on reflection it makes sense.  Obama is, after all, our first Scandinavian President.
Turner corrects a widespread misunderstanding of the Pseudo-Dionysian view of religious language.  For the pseudo-Denys (Turner’s designation), everything comes from God and thus “every creature retains within it a trace of its divine source, every creature in some way reflects, or is in some way an image or ‘similitude’ of,…
Denys Turner ( Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Cistercian Studies Series) ) has the best summary I’ve read of the problems the doctrine of creation poses for any form of Platonism. First, Platonism has difficulty explaining how anything can exist other than God: “For the…
The folks at First Things published an article of mine on secularization in their “On the Square” space yesterday, September 30.
Mike Bull is an graphic designer in the wonderfully named Katoomba, New South Wales, who writes about the Bible. He’s produced a massive “biblical theology of the whole Christ” entitled Totus Christus .  There are a lot of juicy details here, but the overall scheme is to follow the heptamerous…
In a 1996 article, Angel Manuel Rodriguez offers a close structural analysis of the day of coverings rite in Leviticus 16. Overall, he finds that the chapter is a chiasm: “Yahweh said to Moses” ——- “And Yahweh said to Moses” |A Aaron should not go into most holy place any time…
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