Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Standing in the narthex at the font, parents joyfully approach with their newborn child. The pastor asks the parents a series of questions that may include their renunciation of the devil and all his works, their faith in God the Father, Son, and Spirit as explained in the Apostles’ Creed,…
And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, with…
Get the Psalm 30 Translation here Psalm 30 is a song for the dedication of "the house." Since it is by David, the house would seem to be his palace in Jerusalem. The psalm has an ABA structure, with the B structure being an exhortation to the saints, and the…
I once asked a ferryboat captain if steering a ferry was any different than driving, say, a big semi truck. He looked at me like I had just asked whether a bowling ball fell when you dropped it. “It’s completely different,” he said. “On the river, you never stay pointing…
The key scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing comes just after the first wedding scene when Claudio tosses Hero aside as a "rotten orange." He has been tricked into thinking that Hero is unfaithful, and that is an affront to his honor. He won't put her away quietly. He…
Medieval Christianity is in the news. That’s exciting for me as I have a PhD in medieval theology and I teach Ancient and Medieval Church History at Covenant Seminary. Thus I have a little “skin in the game,” as the saying goes. Earlier this week our President made some comments…
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P aul begins his first letter to the Corinthians with a scathing denunciation of Corinthian factionalism. He poses several rhetorical questions: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? And he brings us baptism: Into whose name were you baptized? Paul's? Peter's? Calvin's? Luther's? Baptism is a naming ceremony, and…
I t appears that the biblical text was composed according to preconceived models and patterns shaped by certain numbers that regulate the amount of words, sentences, and verses,” writes CJ Labuschagne in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible (1). Like music, “literary texts in biblical antiquity were composed and structurally…
O ne of the faults of discourses, argues Hobbes ( Leviathan , 1.8), occurs when “men speak such words as, put together, have in them no signification at all.” The words are spoken for different reasons: They “are fallen upon, by some, through misunderstanding of the words they have received…
M onastic flight, Rowan Williams emphasizes ( Silence and Honey Cakes ), wasn't “running away from responsibility or from relationships.” Rather, it is “about denying yourself the luxury of solving your problems by running away literally or physically from them . . . and about taking responsibility for your sins”…
T he problem with sacramental theology is that it's sacramental theology. That is, the problem is the abstraction of certain events, acts, objects, things from their surroundings and subjected to detailed scrutiny. To do sacramental theology, you have to isolate bread and wine from the sequence of liturgical actions that…
T M Luhrmann ( When God Talks Back ) wants to explain believers to contemporary unbelievers. How can orthodox believers withstand the pressures of the secular world and have what they can describe as a personal relationship with God? Luhrmann emphasizes that this experience doesn't come overnight: “Skeptics sometimes imagine…
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