Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John the Baptist says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (Mt. 3:11).” Much debate surrounds the nature of this statement and what exactly it prophesies. Sacramental, baptistic, and charismatic Christians…
First Corinthians is not considered one of the Pastoral Epistles, but there is much to learn from Paul about pastoring a congregation by the way he writes to the Corinthians. Briefly, 1 Corinthians is an exposition of the cross and resurrection. In the first fourteen chapters, Paul gives an exposition…
Fredrik Hagglund ( Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming After Exile (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament) ) argues against the common notion that Isaiah 53 is about the atoning suffering of Yahweh’s Servant. The Servant’s suffering is vicarious (i.e., he suffers for the sins of others) but it is not…
With the inheritance of Canaan and the dividing up of this priestly territory among the tribes, Israel became a microcosm of the nations of the world. This division between Israel and the nations as a substitutionary “land and sea” would prevent another global rebellion, and thus another global judgment. ((For…
One of the more revealing aspects of Paul and James’ soteriology is the different ways they both use Genesis 15:6 (“And Abraham believed God and it was counted for him as righteousness,”) as a proof text to defend their comments about the gospel. The key observation to make is that…
The disintegration of the EU is not the end of the world. It is a sign that the end of the world is anything but nigh. Western culture as we know it is dying at the hands of usurpers, traitors and prodigals. Even the worst rulers throughout Christian history at…
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Timothy Furry’s Allegorizing History is a careful, engaging study of the Venerable Bede’s understanding of history, and of biblical hermeneutics. But perhaps the book’s greatest interest comes at the end, in a more theoretical conclusion, where Furry draws on the work of Frank Ankersmit to argue that history-writing is invariably…
Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s contribution to Trinity and Salvation is on the Trinity and music. Fitzgerald overstates when she called about “musical refutation” of heresy, but her analogies are illuminating. She points to chords as vestigiae Trinitatis : “Each note of the major triad has its own specific relationship with the other…
According to Frederick Ahl ( Metaformations , 18), we have an irrefutable syllogism to demonstrate that puns aren’t found in serious poetry like the Aeneid: “Vergil is a great poet. Puns are not the stuff of great poetry. Therefore Vergil cannot be using puns.” Except that Vergil seems to do…
Typically, wings in the Bible are appendages of birds (Genesis 1:21), so much so that “winged-thing” (substantive of kanaph ) becomes a synonym for bird (cf. Genesis 7:14; bird is ‘oph ). Bird wings are mentioned in the rite for the ascension offering from birds (Leviticus 1:17). The earth’s four…
Encyclopedic Isidore of Seville was one of the most widely-read early Christian writers. His analysis of ancient mythology in Etymologies summarized and extended a tradition that combined several components: Etymologies of the names of gods; euhemerist interpretation of myths as enhanced accounts of historical events; and moral indignation at the…
According Thomas Laqueur’s 2004 Solitary Sex , masturbation wasn’t a major concern in sexual ethics until fairly recently. Stephen Greenblatt summarized the argument in a 2004 review in the NYRB : “Medieval Christian theologians . . . did have a clear concept of masturbation as a sin, but it was…
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