Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Every attempt to understand the Christian sacraments makes use of comparisons or analogies with other rituals, events, or customs. Calvin and those who followed him, for example, spoke of the sacraments as “seals,” and compared them to the “seal of approval” that an official impresses on a document. Thinking about…
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy has pointed out in his essay "Hitler and Israel, or On Prayer" (available for $2.00 from Biblical Horizons ) that it is God’s word "No!" that establishes in a culture the distinction between the Creator and the creature. The Bible repeatedly says "No!" to every human attempt to…
If you missed Gattaca at the movie theaters, you can probably check it out from your local video store now. And you should. This is one of those relatively rare thought-provoking movies that can stand being watched with brain in gear more than once. It is also poetic, sensitive, visually…
Part 4: The Nephilim Factor Western Civilization partakes of what I call "the Nephilim Factor." The Enoch Factor means that the pagans get there first. This is both a blessing and a danger. As a blessing, it means that they work out techniques of dominion over the lower creation that…
The Worship Service Then the one speaking with me took me by the hair and lifted me into the air in the middle of the great room. And as I watched, I saw people entering the room to the sound of the great bells outside. Then entered from all four…
Part 3: Philosophy (continued) If we realize that human beings are the images of God, and that man hates God, then we realize that all non-Christian political philosophy is founded on a fundamental hatred of other human beings, a hatred manifest in contempt. Rome, like Enoch, was founded on the…
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Through Hamann, Luther became a formative influence to modern thought. Beiser writes, “It was Hamann’s mission to defend the spirit of Luther when the Aufklarung threated to destroy it. Hamann never made any disguise of his great debt to Luther, and he explicitly affirmed his wish to see a restoration…
Beiser again, commenting on Hamann’s influence in the 19th century: “One devotee of Hamann’s was F. W. J. Schelling, whose Positivephilosophie reflects Hamannian themes. Another avid student of Hamann’s was F. Schlegel, who wrote one of the first appreciative essays on Hamann’s philosophy. Still another admirer was G. W. F.…
Frederick Beiser ( The Fate of Reason ) laments the obscurity of Hamann in Anglo-American philosophy. His influence on German intellectual history was notable: “Hamann was the father of the Sturm und Drang , the intellectual movement that grew up in Germany during the 1770s in reaction against the Aufklarung…
INTRODUCTION Jesus and His disciples are “sons” of the great King of the temple (17:25-26), and therefore they are brothers of Jesus and one another. The rest of chapter 18 tells us how brothers treat each other. THE TEXT “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him…
A few inconclusive suggestions about the strange story at the end of Matthew 17. First, I take the majority view that the tax in question is the temple tax, and that helps to explain the distinction of sons and strangers that Jesus makes. In a temple context, the sons are…
Matthew 18:4: Whoever humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Children are blessings from the Lord, but how are they blessings? In many ways: There are daily delights in having little children around the house, and there are deeper joys in watching children…
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