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In “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self”, Carl Trueman argues that a single modern self—emotive, expressive, and therapeutic—dominates understandings of personal identity the modern West. This paper builds on Trueman’s framework but proposes a critical refinement: modernity produces not one but two dominant and rival visions of the self. Alongside the therapeutic self … Read more
Wildernesses appear throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and play a major role in the narratives of Israel and Jesus. Wilderness is also an effective way of conceiving of the lives of believers in both testaments as a sojourn between our past redemption and final rest. Yet, especially compared with that other pivotal moment … Read more
Thesis: This paper contends that Romans 7:14–25 preserves a pre-Pauline liturgical lament which Paul strategically reframes in 16-17, 20-23, 25b to correct its misuse by affirming the law’s proper place and redirecting the antinomian faction in Rome’s church to recognize sin’s dominion rather than blaming sin on the flesh. Abstract: I argue that this chiastic … Read more
Catholic theologian and liturgist Josef Jungmann proposed that though private prayers were common in the first centuries of the church, public prayers were generally prayed to the Father through the Son (per Christum). The Jungmann Thesis is the theory that it was in reaction to Arianism (along with inclinations toward monophysitism) that prayers to Jesus … Read more
This paper equips listeners to better preach NT passages which reference non-canonical texts. Some Christians are quite disturbed to hear that the Bible sometimes references non-inspired texts, like Jude’s references to Enoch or the many allusions to the rabbinic oral tradition in the Gospels. Paul quotes Greek plays (1 Cor 15:33), pagan poets (Acts 17:28), … Read more
Commentators are divided on the meaning of הַצִּרְעָה in Exodus 23:28, Deuteronomy 7:20, and Joshua 24:12.(1) The term has been taken literally for the flying insect.(2) Other commentators have suggested a representative usage, where the hornet stands for the Egyptian Pharoah and is iconic of Lower Egypt.(3) Still others suggest a psychological interpretation, where “hornet” … Read more
The relationship between John’s theology and his presentation of history has posed a hermeneutical conundrum for readers of the fourth Gospel. Recent contributions have helpfully worked to alleviate this hermeneutical challenge by highlighting John’s historiographic and eye-witness character (Bauckham, 2007, 2017), apocalyptic structure (Behr 2019), and expression of Christology as theology (Frey, 2019). However, these … Read more
This paper seeks to further advance the growing discussions on Christian Spiritual Formation (essentially) as “transformation of the human will” (Dallas Willard, 2008) by a substantial retrieval of the (neo-)Chalcedonian Dyothelite Christology of the greatest seventh-century theologian, Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ simultaneously philosophical-biblical-theological argument in defense of the Chalcedonian orthodoxy on the “one person, two … Read more
The Council of Nicaea was convened to resolve the Arian controversy and establish orthodox Christian doctrine. Although Arians were anathematized and pushed out of the Roman Catholic Church, the heresy remained widespread across the region as it moved east and south. Over four centuries later, Arius would have his revenge on Nicene Trinitarianism through Muhammad, … Read more
The books of Joel and Zephaniah depict divine judgment on the Day of YHWH through rich metaphors that evoke destruction, cosmic upheaval, and purification (Joel 2:1–11; 2:28–32; Zeph 1:1–18) This study applies Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to analyze how these metaphors function cognitively and theologically with special attention to how the metaphors frame the Day … Read more