Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1 Chronicles 9:1 seems to bring the genealogies of 1 Chronicles to an end. The Chronicler has recorded the genealogy of the human race from Adam, focusing on the descendants of Abraham through Jacob. Summing it all up, he says, “So all Israel was enrolled by genealogies; and behold, they…
The “personalist” understanding of the Trinity, articulated most influentially in the work of John Zizioulas, has fallen on hard times. Recent scholars have attacked Zizioulas’s idea that Cappadocian Trinitarianism represented an ontological revolution, hammering on the distinction between divine and human personhood. Michel Barnes’s conclusion is the most drastic of…
Biblical Theology is often defined as the historical unfolding of God’s revelation, or of God’s revelation and of the history of his covenantal redemption and transformation of humanity and the world. In practice, Biblical Theology is usually broader than this, and also includes the study of literary structure and of…
We are made to be happy. Created to enter into the eternal joy of God, our whole being inclines to that end, but the fallen world has put forth barriers and by our own sin we bar ourselves from that endless delight, and death blinds us to that reality. Yet…
At the end of Revelation, John sees the heavenly city descending to earth. The city shines with the brilliance of God's glory, which lightens the nations, so that kings bring their glory to the city. This is not a vision of the final new heaven and new earth. It's a…
“No one has ever seen God,” writes John (John 1:18). If this is the case, then how can we speak about God? Some people say we actually cannot. Or at least we cannot speak about God positively, i.e. who He is. We can only say who or what God is…
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The demons that emerge from the abyssal cloud in Revelation 12 are initially are described as being like locusts. We know what that means. In the Egyptian plague, the scorpions cover the ground so that no one can see the land, and they eat and eat, eating everything that is…
Following the lead of John Paul II’s theology of the body, I offer some reflections on artistic depictions of the human body at http://www.firstthings.com/ this morning.
John Paul II has some wonderful passages in his discussion of Mathew 22:30, “In the resurrection they take neither wife nor husband, but are like the angels in heaven.” According to his analysis, this is not an annulment of the body or of sexuality but the fulfillment. For him, the…
I have generally used Leithart.com to share reading notes, engage in speculations in exploratory essays, record random thoughts and asides, occasionally to respond to critics. It’s not typically been a place for me to make personal announcements. This is an exception. For the past several months, I have been working…
In his contribution to Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions And Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology , Emmanuel Durand offers an Augustinian treatment of the role of the Spirit in the Father-Son relation: Generation is not merely a “mechanical” operation of divine essence or of the Father, but an expression of…
Sacraments, Louis-Marie Chauvet argues ( The Sacraments - The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body ), are matters of symbolic exchange. The sacrament is a gift and every gift demands a return gift. Not quite, argues Belcher ( Efficacious Engagement: Sacramental Participation in the Trinitarian Mystery 35):…
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