Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I mentioned last month ( BH 82) in my essay "Like a Dove" that Genesis 8 is a recapitulation of Genesis 1. Let me explicate that assertion here. Of course, the world after the Flood is a new creation, so we may expect a recapitulation of the first creation. It…
The book of Esther is one of the most neglected of the books of the Bible. To be sure, sermons are preached on it, and commentaries have occasionally been written on it, but almost without exception Esther has been interpreted in isolation from the rest of Biblical history, chronology, and…
Dear Mr. ______, . . . Here is how I look at the geocentricity question. Since I don’t recall what I wrote you before, I may be repeating some things. 1. The Bible does not teach it. Biblical passages used to support the idea are being misinterpreted. My original paper…
Answer 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is often taken as a magnificent answer to the question, "What is God?" It reads: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." Presbyterians are fond of praising this statement, preaching on it,…
The gospels tell us that at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him "in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22 & parallels). Biblically sensitive commentators have associated this event with three Old Testament parallels: (1) the hovering of the Spirit over the creation in Genesis 1:2; (2) the…
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (John 8:6) The story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) has been part of the canonical Christian Bible from its earliest…
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Emery points out that Thomas’ Trinitarian account of creation makes the Word the art of God: “The Word is . . . the reason of creatures from a double point of view, that of exemplar causality (the expression, the conception of creatures) and that of efficient causality (the accomplishment of…
According to Gilles Emery, Aquinas provides a Trinitarian account of creation. The processions within the being of God are the uncreated exemplars of the acts of creation. Emery (in a contribution to The Theology of Thomas Aquinas ): “In God, procession signified the essential communication of the fullness of divinity:…
Anna Wilson has a stimulating essay on the rise of biography after the conversion of Constantine, the Vita Constantini of Eusebius being the leading model. The rise of biography manifests the change in the fortunes of the church, as bios replaced martyrion as the leading subject of Christian biographical writing.…
An anonymous homily of the late 4th century: “Scripture has taken the Sabbath to mean rest . . . . So also the Lord having wrought the consummation, having suffered on Friday and finished his works for the restoration of fallen man, rests the seventh day and abides in the…
Barnes notes an incident recorded by Sozomen that represents the typical relationship between church and emperor under Constantine. Basil of Ancyra, along with a number of other bishops, was deposed by the Council of Constantinople in 360. It was alleged that Basil”gave orders to the civil authorities to sentence clergy…
Gibbon wrote that “the distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers, which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece and Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of Christianity” with the result that “a secret conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operations…
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