“Abstain from fleshly lusts,” Peter says in this morning’s sermon text, “which war against the soul.” It sounds as if Peter is saying that our bodies are evil, but that’s not what he means. Later in the letter, Peter warns us to put aside the flesh and the “lusts . . . . Continue Reading »
A funny thing happened on the way to mapping the genome, says James Le Fanu ( Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves ). Humans have 25,000 genes. That’s enough to get the job done, of course, but scientists were surprised to discover so few. To transform . . . . Continue Reading »
Athanasius’ treatment of Proverbs 8 is not convincing as exegesis, but as a piece of theology it is brilliant. When Proverbs says that God “made” and “created” His Wisdom (in the LXX), it doesn’t refer, Athanasius says, to His nature but to His incarnation. . . . . Continue Reading »
Athansius of course thinks the Arians are wrong because the Son is eternal. But one of his more intriguing, and satisfying, arguments is based on the biblical notion that the Son is the one through whom the “ages” came into being (Hebrews 1:2). Athanasius says, “every . . . . Continue Reading »
Is the church a polis herself? Or a replacement for the pagan cults at the heart of the ancient polis? There might be another way to say it. Erik Peterson ( Das Buch von den Engeln , 1935) points to the NT language about a heavenly Jerusalem of which Christians are citizens. He . . . . Continue Reading »
Traveling by sea to Rome, Paul encounters a storm, plunges into the sea and then arrives at Malta. He is an unreluctant Jonah, cross the sea westward to call a Gentile empire to repentance. But why the unusually detailed travelogue in Acts 27? Sidon, Cyprus, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Myra in . . . . Continue Reading »
Let us suppose that the Son dwells in flesh, dies to flesh, rises in Spirit, all to prepare a new humanity to receive the radiance of light within. What might be wrong with that? One objection might be: Why does God need time to prepare a body? As a student, Stephen Long, recently . . . . Continue Reading »
What difference does the incarnation make? For Athanasius, it means (among other things, of course) that grace is worked from within humanity rather than being offered extrinsically from without, as grace was given to Adam. Redemption history is a movement from extrinsic to intrinsic grace, . . . . Continue Reading »
Levinas opposes the reduction of the Other to the Same. So, with more reason, does Athanasius: The Father and Son are not one in the sense that “one thing is twice named, so that the Same ( ton auton ) becomes at one time Father, at another time His own Son.” This is the error of . . . . Continue Reading »
Chee-Chiew Lee has an interesting article on the phrase “company of nations” in Genesis 35:11. She links the promise that Jacob will become a company of nations to the promise that Abraham would be a father of many nations in Genesis 17:4-5. But 35:11 adds an important gloss . . . . Continue Reading »
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