Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Standing in the narthex at the font, parents joyfully approach with their newborn child. The pastor asks the parents a series of questions that may include their renunciation of the devil and all his works, their faith in God the Father, Son, and Spirit as explained in the Apostles’ Creed,…
And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, with…
Get the Psalm 30 Translation here Psalm 30 is a song for the dedication of "the house." Since it is by David, the house would seem to be his palace in Jerusalem. The psalm has an ABA structure, with the B structure being an exhortation to the saints, and the…
I once asked a ferryboat captain if steering a ferry was any different than driving, say, a big semi truck. He looked at me like I had just asked whether a bowling ball fell when you dropped it. “It’s completely different,” he said. “On the river, you never stay pointing…
The key scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing comes just after the first wedding scene when Claudio tosses Hero aside as a "rotten orange." He has been tricked into thinking that Hero is unfaithful, and that is an affront to his honor. He won't put her away quietly. He…
Medieval Christianity is in the news. That’s exciting for me as I have a PhD in medieval theology and I teach Ancient and Medieval Church History at Covenant Seminary. Thus I have a little “skin in the game,” as the saying goes. Earlier this week our President made some comments…
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Burckhardt notes the parallels between the nobility of late antique Persia and the knights of the Western middle ages: “The nobility itself, with its bluff chivalry, is quite Western. Its formal relationship to the King appears to have bene feudal; its principal obligation was assistance in war. As represented in…
A sentence from Burckhardt’s description of the Persian campaigns of Galerius: “But two indecisive battles and a third which Galerius lost through excessive boldness again drenched with Roman blood the desolate plain between Carrhae and the Euphrates where Crassus had once led ten legions to their death.” What does one…
Burckhardt once again, describing the spread of Semitic religion through the empire: “From the Old Testament, we know Baalzebub, Baalpeor, Baalberith, and the like, whose names may have been long forgotten. In Palmyra Baal seems to have been divided into two divinities for sun and moon, as Aglibol and Malachbel,…
Burckhardt again, describing the Roman spread of the Isis cult: “Roman arms spread the worship of Isis to the frontiers of the Empire, in the Netherlands as in Switzerland and South Germany. It penetrated private life more thoroughly and earlier than the cult of the great Semitic goddess.” Thus an…
Jacob Burckhardt ( Age of Constantine the Great ) describes the temple of Isis at Hieropolis: “Its Ionic colonnades resting upon masonry terraces with huge propylaea, upon a hill which towered over the city, made a brilliant and conspicuous spectacle. It is remarkable that this temple precinct, with its wild…
For many throughout church history, fasting is bound up with hostility to matter and the body. We refrain from bodily pleasures of food and drink to train our souls in disembodied life. That’s not biblical. The biblical fast, as Isaiah 58 puts it, is to share food with the hungry…
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