Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
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INTRODUCTION Jesus has already warned that His coming and the mission of the Twelve divides families (10:21), and He returns to that theme at the end of the discourse (vv. 34-36). He is the Prince of Peace, but the peace He brings comes after He brings a sword. THE TEXT…
Jesus whispers. He speaks dark and hidden parables. But He instructs His disciples to shout out His words on the housetops (Matthew 10:26-27). This is the history of the church in a nutshell. A Pharisee traveling to Damascus is throne from his horse and Jesus speaks to Him, and the…
Matthew 10: I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. As we saw in the sermon this morning, Jesus distinguishes His disciples from the leaders of Israel as sheep from wolves. The Jewish leaders prey on the people, but the Twelve are supposed to take their place…
We often think about mission as the thing that happens after all the really important stuff is over and done. Jesus died, rose again, ascended, and gave the Spirit, and now that everything is finished, we start the mission. Mission is announcing what has already happened. There’s some truth to…
In a summary of the theology of Matthias Scheeben, von Balthasar notes that he “proposes a Christian theology of sacrifice which strongly rejects the Baroque theory of ‘destruction’ and returns to the wholly personal and spiritual concept of sacrifice of the Fathers, especially of Augustine.” Sacrifice is not essentially “destruction”…
Pelagius agreed with Augustine that sin cannot be a substance, since God doesn’t create evil. For Pelagius, this meant that sin cannot corrupt or wound or weaken human nature since “how could that which lacks substance have weakened or changed human nature.” Augustine’s response is to quote Scripture (Psalm 40),…
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