Adam and Eve seize the forbidden fruit before it’s time. When they cover themselves, they again jump the gun - using leaves to hide their shameful nakedness. They aren’t ready for that either, and the Lord gives them skins of a sacrificed animal to cover. From that time until the Last . . . . Continue Reading »
The promises you’ll make in a moment are utterly open-ended. You can’t be sure what will happen later today, much less for the rest of your life. You can take these vows confidently only if you entrust yourselves to the God who is Alpha and Omega, the God who is before every past and . . . . Continue Reading »
Griffiths ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) ) suggests that we must interpret the Song’s bodily imagery through the theological lens of Paul’s teaching concerning the body of Christ. “The complex and fluid relations of one body part to another – of . . . . Continue Reading »
In his study of Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge (p. 11), Lawrence Kramer describes the shift from modern to postmodern in terms of speech-act theory. Modernism privileged the constative and subordinated the performative; postmodernism deconstructs the hierarchy and especially highlights . . . . Continue Reading »
Griffiths argues ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , pp. 30-31) that the analogy between human love and God’s gift of love to us is found in “the sheer excess of human sexual love, its radical disproportion to its biological and social functions, its deranged . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul Griffiths brilliantly analyzes the lovers’ obsession with one another’s bodies in the Song ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , p. 30): “Lovers are interested in one another’s bodies, indeed absorbed by them. They gaze into one another’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s an intriguing etymology. The Hebrew word na’ah is used only three times in the Old Testament (Psalm 93:5; Song of Songs 1:10; Isaiah 52:7), meaning “to be beautiful.” It appears to come from navah , “to sit, to dwell.” It has the sense of “sitting . . . . Continue Reading »
Some reflections on how the Bible is practical at http://www.firstthings.com/ this morning. . . . . Continue Reading »
Summarizing the 16th-century Reformed formulations of Eucharistic theology, John Williamson Nevin ( The Mystical Presence: And the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper (Mercersburg Theology Study) , p. 51) says: “The sacrament is made to carry with it an objective force . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the most heartening developments in the Reformed world in the past two decades is the renewal of interest in the Mercersberg movement. And one of the most heartening developments within that development is Wipf & Stock’s plan to publish a multi-volume collection of Mercersberg . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
