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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Eberhard Jungel ( Justification , 78-80) defines God’s righteousness in terms of His self-consistency: “the doctrine of justification sees God as being utterly consistent with himself and therefore righteous , when it conceives of him as the justifying God who justifies not the righteous, but the unrighteous, not the pious,…
In their contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions , Michael Guichard and Lionel Marti recount a spell for getting rid of a menacing wild cat who brings evil omens by growling and moaning in the yard. Here’s the recipe: At night, the victim set up a stoup…
Symbolic boundaries might appear to be merely metaphorical. They aren’t real boundaries. We only treat them as boundaries. Presumably, what is meant here by a “real boundary” is a fence, wall, or other artificial or natural obstacle that prevents us from moving from where we are to the far side…
The flesh is weak, vulnerable. We don’t like being weak and vulnerable. So life according to the flesh is reactive. We recoil from pain. We retaliate to protect ourselves. The Spirit resists the reactiveness of the flesh. As can be seen in the Spirit-filled Jesus, the Spirit revels in vulnerability.…
A few weeks back, I published a brief essay on Protestantism and sacraments on the Patheos site. Some of my friends have clamored for clarifications. Hence this post. My claim was that Protestantism cannot achieve its pastoral aims without high view of the efficacy of sacraments. I focused on baptism.…
Reformed theologians and epistemologists tend to psychologize Romans 1:18-32. God’s character and demands are evident in the creation, but human beings, while knowing God, suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Sinners become double-minded, both knowing God and not-knowing, both aware of the truth but denying the truth, and becoming self-deceived in…
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