Surprisingly, Jesus begins His litany of woe (Matthew 23) by commending the teaching of Jewish scribes and Pharisees. They sit in the seat of Moses, and Jesus’ disciples are to “do and observe” what they say. They may sit in Moses’ seat, but they are not Mosaic in their conduct. Moses came to break the yoke of oppression and free slaves, but the scribes and Pharisees “tie up heavy loads and lay them on men’s shoulders” and refuse to lift... Read more
Did God create from nothing? Yes and No. Yes, the formless-and-void “earth” was made from nothing (Genesis 1:1-2). After that, the creation account is an account of Yahweh working with the stuff, sometimes telling the stuff (soil and water) to produce new things and new configurations of existing things. Adam was not made from nothing but from the dust of the ground. So what? Much in every way. (more…) Read more
O’Donovan begins Desire of Nations with a discussion of post-Enlightenment criticism of authority, the unmasking of the self-interest of power that is at the heart of modern and post-modern thought. This unmasking, he says, originates in Christianity, but detached from theology and the church it has degenerated “into little more than a rhetoric of scepticism.” In this context, he makes these penetrating observations about the rise of sociology: (more…) Read more
I’m no poet, but sometimes I feel poetic. What’s that feel like? It feels like, “I wish I were a poet so I translate that to language.” But there are a couple of other things going on too. One is a desire for explanation. When the spring breeze comes through the window of my library and billows the curtains, or I see the breath of God make the trees outside dance, I wonder about wind. I think briefly about oxygen,... Read more
An article of mine about the cross and what Paul calls the “powers” is posted on the First Things web site this morning: www.firstthings.com Read more
Luther presents several arguments against the Roman Catholic claim that marriage is a sacrament. First, he claims that it doesn’t fit the definition of a sacrament, which includes a divine promise and a sign: “We said that there is in every sacrament a word of divine promise, to be believed by whoever receives the sign, and that the sign alone cannot be a sacrament. Now we read nowhere that the man who marries a wife receives any grace of God.... Read more
Marriage was not considered a sacrament in the strict sense by the earliest church fathers or in medieval era. This is partly because there was no “sacrament” in the strict sense; the word was used loosely for “sacred signs.” Augustine described marriage as a “sacrament,” but he didn’t mean by that what others meant. John Witte, Jr., says that the Gregorian revolution was the context for the explicit sacramentalization of marriage, and can be seen as part of the effort... Read more
INTRODUCTION Jesus begins His teaching ministry offering eightfold beatitude to Israel (Matthew 5:1-12); His teaching ministry ends with an eightfold woe against Jerusalem and a prophecy about the destruction of the temple (Matthew 23-25). Jesus’ life with Israel recapitulates Israel ’s history, which begins in exodus and ends with exile. THE TEXT “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?’ They said to Him, ‘T he Son... Read more
To her credit, Brigitte Kahl (in Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire ) recognizes that Acts gives a fairly sympathetic portrait of Rome. In the various episodes where Paul is suspected of subverting the empire, “Acts makes every effort to draw as favorable a picture as possible,” not only of Paul’s ministry but of Roman officials: “Many times Roman officials testify that Paul is no threat to Roman rule.” It is not to her credit, though, that Kahl then... Read more
How many sacraments does the church have? It depends, says Richard Baxter. One can define sacrament as “A solemn dedication of man to God by a vow expressed by some sacred ceremony, signifying mutually our covenant to God, and God’s reception of us and his covenant with us.” By this definition, there are two: “As the word ’ Sacrament’ is taken properly and fully according to the aforesaid description, so there are properly two sacraments of Christianity, or of the... Read more
Leithart
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