Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen. 1:28). In Christian worldview…
"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…
One of the important themes of the synoptic gospels is Jesus’ rejection of Israel and the transfer of God’s favor to the New Israel, the Church. A clear statement of this theme is found in the parable of the vineyard owner in Matthew 21:33-46. Jesus explained the meaning of the…
11. There is a type of person [a generation] who curses his father, And does not bless his mother. 12. There is a type who is pure in his own eyes, Yet not washed from his filthiness [manure]. 13. There is a type — oh how lofty are his eyes!…
Under the Levitical law, whole-burnt offerings from the herd and flock had to be male. No such specification is made with respect to birds (cf. Lev. 5:7-10). Why did the Lord demand that only males be offered as whole-burnt offerings? The easy answer is that the whole-burnt offering typified Christ,…
Matthew 2:13-23 has a tripartite structure, reporting briefly three events of the early years of Jesus’ life. Matthew ends his narrative of each event with a "fulfillment formula." Jesus’ flight to Egypt and His Exodus back into Israel was a fulfillment of Hosea’s words, "Out of Egypt I call my…
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Mark 10:29-30: Jesus said, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that He shall receive a hundred times as much now in the…
We think we possess things by holding on to them. We own our house and our car and our cat and our certificates of deposit when we have free and unhindered use of them. If there’s a new lock on the door when you come home from work, you don’t…
Another hurrah to Rahner. He notes that part of the standard view of grace among post-Reformation Catholics is the notion that grace is “above man’s conscious spiritual and moral life.” It is an object of faith, but it never penetrates to consciousness or experience: “only nature and its acts constitute…
Enough beating up on Rahner for the moment. He has this statement in Nature and Grace : “there has been no ‘chemically pure’ description of pure nature, but mixed in with it there are traces of elements of historical nature, i.e., nature possessing grace. Who is to say that the…
Rahner (still working in his little book, Nature and Grace ) distinguishes between “being ordered to grace” and “being directed to grace in such a way that without the actual gift of this grace it would all be meaningless.” He affirms the first, not the second. A created spirit “is…
Rahner says that the Beatific vision is “through grace” and comes as a “free gift, not due to [man] by nature, not pledged to him by his creation (so that our creation, which was a free act of God, not due to us, and the free gift of grace to…
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