Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,” declares the Lord, “they shall say no more, ‘The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.’ And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor…
Elsewhere, I have argued that there is grace in the so-called covenant of works (see, e.g., my colloquium essay, “A Response to ‘The Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons , edited by Calvin Beisner (pages 118-148). It may be equally surprising to find justice…
Years ago, as a layman, I had the privilege of attending a Bible study led by a gifted teacher. His story was interesting: back when he was a student he had been severely sanctioned for affirming that one must repent in order to be saved, that one must trust Jesus…
Believing that God really exists Defining “faith” is sometimes made too complicated. The theologian, Louis Berkhof, for example, distinguishes “faith in general” from “faith in the religious sense and particularly saving faith.” Berkhof’s core definition of saving faith is not so bad. He says that it is “a certain conviction,…
It is generally acknowledged that when Paul wrote letters to churches, he expected his letters to be read in the worship service to the congregation. It is interesting, then, that when Paul wrote letters to a congregation he could feel free to address children and tell them to obey their…
Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is a classic work of ecclesiology. This book is the longest section of the Institutes , showing Calvin’s deep interest in and love for the church. Among its many salutary features is a full scale exposition of those ecclesiastical leaders Calvin…
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George Steiner ( Martin Heidegger , 155-6) approaches the essence of Heidegger: ” Sein ist Sein and the rejection of paraphrase or logical exposition have their exact precedent in the ontological finality of theology . . . they are the absolute equivalent to the Self-utterance and Self-definition of the Deity…
Heidegger’s play with veiling and unveiling, of truth as a-letheia can seem pointless, but John Caputo offers this helpful description in Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) (273-4): “What better example of the play of concealment and un-concealment, of closure and dis-closure,…
Yahweh has no sooner promised the land to Abram than we learn that there is a famine in the land (Genesis 12:10). Isaac has to face another famine later, another famine “besides the first famine in the days of Abraham” (Genesis 26:1). And of course Jacob sends his sons to…
The sixth cause of absurdity in reason, Hobbes says ( Leviathan Publisher: Penguin Classics , 1.5) is “the use of Metaphors, Tropes, and other Rhetoricall figures, in stead of words proper.” Metaphors are lawful in common speech, but “in reckoning [i.e., in reasoning mathematically conceived], and seeking of truth, such…
Hobbes ( Leviathan Publisher: Penguin Classics , 1.4) argues that speech enables us generalize and so to avoid the labor that would come if we had to analyze and assess every new object of knowledge individually: “a man that hath no use of Speech at all, (such, as is born…
Isaiah uses the root yasha’ (save) nearly thirty times in his prophecy. After chapter 43, the participle form is used seven times as a substantive, a title for Yahweh, in statements like: “I am Yahweh your God, your Savior” (43:3, 11; 45:15, 21; 49:26; 60:16; 63:8). Along with the simple…
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