Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For many people Christmas comes on December 25 and is over December 26. The tree is taken down along with the lights and the other decorations, and everyone begins setting the house in order for the new year. No more Christmas hymns. No more celebrations (well, until New Year’s Eve).…
The Ascension and the Incarnation should not be disconnected in our Christmas thinking or celebrations. As N.T. Wright notes, the ascension is "a central and vital feature without which all sorts of other things start to go demonstrably wrong. . . . where the ascension has been ignored or misunderstood,…
“In the Word was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness.” Thus John describes the incarnation of the Son. He comes as the living and life-giving light of the world. That’s good news. In the beginning, God spoke and light shone…
Christmas is all about Jesus. The angels announce Jesus’ birth, shepherds and wise men come to see Jesus, Herod wants to kill Jesus. We occasionally think of the Father who sent the Son, but we keep returning to the Son made flesh in Bethlehem’s manger. Meanwhile, as always, the Spirit…
Christmas is about many things, but one of the chief things revealed in the gospel of Christmas is the humility of God. We don't often think of humility as an attribute of God. If God is glorious and exalted, we think, He must be haughty and proud and self-centered. We…
John famously begins his Gospel with a piece of theology: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Matthew starts with a genealogy. John celebrates Advent with a hymn, Matthew with a list. For John, Jesus is the Word of creation…
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Exodus 23:14: Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. Israel’s festival calendar was organized around three feasts. In the spring, Passover celebrated the deliverance from Egypt. In the third month, they kept Pentecost, marking the firstfruits of harvest and the giving of the law. In seventh…
Exodus 23:20: Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. As Pastor Sumpter has emphasized this morning, Yahweh promises to send His angel ahead of Israel. This Angel is an early…
“You are not to boil a kid in the milk of its mother.” This odd commandment is repeated three times in the law. God must think it’s important. But what does it mean? Jews interpret it as a food law that forbids them to eat milk and meat together. But…
There’s a widespread instinct that the higher a church’s liturgy, the more apt a church is to be full of lukewarm nominal believers. Mainline liturgical churches like the ELCA, ECUSA, PCUSA are, it is argued, full of people who know nothing of the Bible and little of Jesus, and they…
Originally, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. As soon as they ate the fruit, their nakedness became shameful and they tried to cover. After that, nakedness and shame are constantly associated in Scripture. Why? Nakedness is shameful when it is the result of stripping off glory. Before Adam ate…
We can pray, says Schaller ( Asking and Thanking (Concilium) , 5-6), only because of the rights of children given us by God: He has “admitted [us] to his presence. It is his will that we should not keep silent before him.” Thus, “where we venture to turn to God…
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