Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
G.K. Chesterton assumes a surprising and memorable perspective from which to view the events of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The Donkey by: G.K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head…
There is a common biblical principle: you must give back what you steal. In the Bible, restitution is repayment with interest. If you rob someone of their money, you have to pay back double what you stole. A thief must pay back fourfold if he steals a sheep, and if…
Identifying Isaiah’s suffering servant with the promised Messiah is unthinkable for a Jew because it combines the offices of humble priest and victorious king. While it is frustrating that Jews refuse to see the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53, the reluctance of Christians to interpret the passage in its…
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6 (ESV) The command to praise God is pervasive throughout Scripture. In the verse above the Spirit calls all things with breath to praise the Lord. Song is also clearly featured all throughout Scripture and is a featured…
“Gender is a social construct.” That’s shocking to people who have assumed that gender and sex were synonyms but at least since I was in college, in the ‘80s, we were taught that “gender” refers to the forms, the customs, the traditions that our culture teaches us to define what…
In Genesis 49, Jacob prophesies about (blesses and curses?) his twelve sons. The first three of them don’t fare well. Jacob recalls Reuben’s offense of taking his concubine (Genesis 35:22) and the murderous violence of Simeon’s and Levi against the Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). He…
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B eowulf reflects the tensions between the Christian culture spreading throughout Northern Europe and the pagan cultures into which it came into conflict. The poem has its place within this clash of civilizations in the first 500 years AD. It is a product of the history of missions. The Germanic…
SERPENT KING Among other things, Hamlet is a dramatic reflection on philosophical anthropology: What is a man? and What are the conditions of human experience and existence? This is related to the theme we explored a few weeks ago under the heading of “action”: What are the rules and guidelines…
Mark is known for the understated irony of his gospel, but there is a large-scale irony overarching the book that is worthy of Sophocles. Readers know from the first verse of the gospel that Jesus is Son of God, and that title is used periodically through the gospel by the…
Mark is known for the understated irony of his gospel, but there is a large-scale irony overarching the book that is worthy of Sophocles. Readers know from the first verse of the gospel that Jesus is Son of God, and that title is used periodically through the gospel by the…
What characterizes the Renaissance sensibility of the self? Two things, perhaps: First: not the playing of roles, but the consciousness of playing roles, the consciousness that creates an ironic distance between role and role-player. Richard II is entirely expressed in his assigned role; Henry V seems conscious that he is…
New Critics, Feminists Phenomenology; Reader-Response critics Need no apology. There are Formalists of Russia, Structuralists of France. Give Archetypal Critics More than a glance. Marxists are strange birds, Like Speech-Act Theorists. And yet there’s no doubt Which theory is Queerest. Diaologic critics And Deconstruction Both in their own way Love…
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