Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Blessing of the Father The narrative of the Exodus makes it clear that Yahweh is Israel’s Father. Moses is told to declare to Pharaoh that “Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’” (Exodus 4:22-23). In contrast to…
When reading the Old Testament, the believer faces two dilemmas. First, there is a seemingly sharp discontinuity between the universal proclamation of the gospel to the whole earth and God’s singling out of the nation of Israel. Second, the New Testament says of Jesus that “there is no other name…
John 17 contains the longest prayer that we have from Jesus, and it shows us the intimate relationship between the Father and the Son in a way that few passages do. The prayer lays out the chiastic pattern noted by Athanasius (God became man so that man could become God),…
The following meditation on the incarnation is paraphrased and quoted from Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation (Church Dogmatics, Vol. 4, Part 1) , pp. 185ff. In the incarnation, the eternal Son of God makes His way into a far country, and takes on the form of a servant. “But…
Peter says "baptism saves you" (1 Peter 3:21). Does the New Testament teach that "baptism justifies you"? I think the answer is Yes. That's a controversial answer, and demands some defense and explanation, but first some critical qualifications. No New Testament text states "baptism justifies you," so my argument will…
In his THI article “ Son of David, Son of Abraham ,” Peter Leithart notes that Matthew's genealogy “contains a summary of redemptive history.” This statement is only too true and one that deserves further elucidation. Biblos genese ō s. The first two words of Matthew's Gospel are usually translated…
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Finally getting around to Jorge Gracia’s Theory of Textuality . It’s got a lot of strengths. Gracia recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of various theories of textual meaning, and sensibly tests theories by their ability to explain our actual experience of texts. Postmodern diffusion can’t explain the fact of daily…
Considering the plural pronoun at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, Chrysostom says that it announces a moral and social revolution: “by this He at once takes away hatred, and quells pride, and casts out envy, and brings in the mother of all good things, even charity, and exterminates the…
Athenagoras condemns worship of the creation using a musical analogy ( A Plea for Christians ): “If therefore the world is an instrument in tune, and moving in well-measured time, I adore the Being who gave its harmony, and strikes its notes, and sings the accordant strain, and not the…
Gregory of Nyssa explains in On the Making of Man that the human body is like a musical instrument, designed for reason. This is itself a striking image, but Nyssa expounds on the analogy by looking at the specific contours of the human body. The passage reminds me of Leon…
Clement of Alexandria begins his Exhortation to the Heathen by reviewing various myths about music, and then introduces the gospel as God’s new song. By the time he’s done, he’s told the history of the world musically: “Behold the might of the new song! It has made men out of…
In his study of children’s literature ( Stars, Tigers, and the Shape of Words ), JH Prynne mounts a critique of Saussure designed to show that “the methodology of practical literary criticism habitually contradicts Saussure’s theory of language by assuming that acoustic or graphic properties of the sign do contribute…
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