Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
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Ken Adelman had an inside track for understanding Reagan at Reykjavik , the apparently failed but ultimately epoch-making negotiations about nuclear arms between Reagan and Gorbachev in Iceland. According to the NYTBR review, Reagan “spooked Republican foreign policy hands with lofty talk of ‘the total elimination one day of nuclear…
Walter Lowe’s contribution to the Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology is a brief not for particularity but for the postmodern recovery of singularity after the collapse of Enlightenment universalism. Lowe argues, “Nothing dictates that truth, elusive as it is, cannot possibly be revealed in, and linked to, a speci?c singularity;…
Exodus includes two descriptions of the furnishings of the tabernacle, one before the golden calf incident (25-31) and one after (35-40). Exodus 39:32-43 provides the conclusion to a section describing the construction of the tabernacle and furnishings, which is followed by the actual erection of the tabernacle in chapter 40.…
When the second creature calls out, a red horse emerges from the opened heaven, with a rider who receives the ability to remove peace, to set men against each other, using a “great sword” ( machaira megale , Revelation 6:4). Only a few “great swords” appear elsewhere in Scripture. Yahweh…
In an appendix to Fullness Received and Returned (390), Seng-Kong Tan summarizes Paul Negrut’s arguments against the notion of divine energies developed by Gregory of Palamas. First, “while the energies are enhypostatic and only express but are not identical to the divine persons, it follows that ‘the latter is forced…
Everyone knows, as Eric Jaffe puts it , that “Outside views are often badges of seniority or achievement in the work world—understandably, given that they’re in short supply.” A new study suggests that there’s more at stake, though: “an interdisciplinary team of architects and medical researchers . . . recently…
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