Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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Some notes on Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona . 1) Garber has a long helpful list of the devices first used in Two Gentlemen and repeatedly used in later plays: a love triangle that leads one heroine to find refuge with a friar; a second heroine who disguises herself as…
Charles Lock comments, “Linearity of reading is the fundamental principle by which the text is established in modernity as a text. That is to say, when we read a text we do not see an image: the type and size of font, the disposition of words on the page, the…
Of John 8, Northrup Frye commented, “There is also the woman taken in adultery who has firmly established squatter’s rights on the beginning of John 8, despite the efforts of nervous editors, ancient and modern, to get her out of there.”
Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: “But Jesus, son of Nave, was a type of Him in many things; for when he began to rule the people, he began from the Jordan; thence also did Christ begin to preach the Gospel after He was baptized. The son of Nave appoints the twelve…
The redoubtable Caitlin Flanagan has an insightful and funny review of Edward Kline’s biography of Katie Couric in the current issue of the Atlantic . Part of the review details Flanagan’s own “friendship” with the Couric of the Today show, but Flanagan characteristically goes beyond autobiography to explain Couric’s appeal.…
In his introduction to the wisdom literature, Roland Murphy notes some of the numerological structures of Proverbs: “First, 1:1 has three names [Solomon, David, Israel], which have the numerological value of 375, 14, and 541, for a total of 930 . . . . this hint in the title of…
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