If you click on “Downloads” above you’ll be able to find a longish, but rather unpolished and work-in-progressive paper on the typological structure of Matthew. Thanks to Ralph and Emeth Smith for pdf-ing it for me and uploading it to this site. Read more
In a 1971 article, Ann Banfield writes, “If Mansfield is ‘modern, airy, and well-situated,’ the house at Sotherton, ‘built in Elizabeth’s time’ and ‘furnished in the taste of fifty years back,’ is ‘ill-placed,’ for ‘it stands in one of the lowest spots of the park.’ It is without the essential feature of the pleasing landscape – a ‘fair prospect.’ The lawn is ‘bounded on each side by a high wall,’ and beyond this ‘iron palissades’ hinder the view and forbid... Read more
In an article in Studies in English Literature (2004), Michael Karounos notes that “The meaning of ordination was not restricted in 1814 to the meaning of assuming a religious office, nor, indeed, was that its primary definition. A glance at the OED demonstrates that trees, animals, and ideas may all be ordinated. Sub-ordination, as a disposition of ranks or in reference to a hierarchical order, is implicit in the understanding of the term, and only after considering the range of... Read more
In Book III of his poem “The Task,” the most popular poem of the late eighteenth century, William Cowper lamented how the lust for “improvement” has spoiled nature and the English character. Austen, who described Cowper as her favorite poet, might have had the poem open as she wrote Mansfield Park . An excerpt follows: My charmer is not mine alone; my sweets, And she that sweetens all my bitters, too, Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form And lineaments divine... Read more
Brownson claims that baptism does not bring assurance in the sense of answering the question “How can I know if I really have true faith that relies on Christ alone?” That experience of assurance only comes through “the existential act of reliance upon God’s grace in Christ, rather than upon ourselves.” Yet, baptism does assure in the sense of answering the question, “How can I be sure that God intends the gracious promises of the gospel for me in particular... Read more
Brownson again, arguing that “In baptism, I am given a new identity, into which I am called to grow”: “When we are baptized into the name of Jesus, we are given a new name, the name of Christian. Names are curious things. We rarely choose them for ourselves; they are given to us by others. Yet names carry within themselves powerful markers of our identity . . . . We become our name; our name becomes us. Our identity raises... Read more
In The Promise of Baptism (Eerdmans, 2007), James Brownson describes faith as 1) acknowledging God’s goodness to me in particular, 2) accepting and receiving the gifts He offers, 3) trusting Him, and 4) being loyal to Him, clinging in allegiance to Him. He neatly ties this to baptism in a number of ways. First, “faith begins by acknowledging that God loves the world and sent Jesus to be its Savior. But faith takes another step when people accept that this... Read more
The violent are confined to the seventh circle of Dante’s hell, which is divided among those who commit violence against neighbors, against themselves, and against God. In the second category, those who commit violence against themselves, are not only suicides, but those who have “robbed themselves of life on earth above,/ gambled their substance, melted all their wealth,/ or wept for things that should have brought them joy” (11.43-45, Anthony Esolen’s translation). Dante treats goods as inherent in the person,... Read more
Matthew’s genealogy has several gaps. One of them occurs in his list of kings of Judah (vv. 8-9). He lists these: Joram Uzziah (Greek, OZIAS) Jotham Ahaz Hezekiah 2 Kings, by contrasts, lists the following: (more…) Read more
Davies and Allison point out that Matthew follows the genealogy of Chronicles for the first section of his own genealogy. That is unusual, they say, since Chronicles was not widely used in early Christian writings. But it is an indication that Matthew models his entire gospel on Chronicles – he begins with a genealogy that matches 1 Chronicles, and ends with a Great Commission that resembles the decree of Cyrus at the end of 2 Chronicles. Read more
Leithart
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