Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Leithart

Home
Evangelical
Joy at His Coming

Joy at His Coming

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:45 pm by Peter Leithart

Joy at His Coming 2017-09-06T23:45:28+06:00 Peter Leithart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent.

“Rejoice in the Lord always,” Paul says (Philippians 4:4).

“Always,” Paul? Always? Rejoice when my mother dies, and when my husband’s playing around, and when we don’t know where the next paycheck is coming from, and when I won’t make the deadline on the project I’m working on? Rejoice when I stub my toe in the dark, and when I fail a test, and when my roommate’s gossiping about me and turning other friends against me? Rejoice always, even when bad things are happening to me? Rejoice always, even when my life is coming apart at the seams? Always, Paul? Always? Rejoice when you know there are thousands of children around the world who don’t have enough to eat, when many thousands more live in war zones, when we daily read about acts of horrific cruelty in the newspaper? Rejoice when the church is in disarray, when Christians can’t make up their minds about simple ethical issues, when the church has cozied up to oppressors? Rejoice always? Even when the church and the world are in misery?

Paul’s exhortation sounds impossible, inhuman, nonsensical. Worse, it sounds unbiblical and unchristian.

Didn’t Paul pay attention to the Psalms that he learned in the synagogue and the temple? When David said, “Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress; incline your ear to me”; when he said, “my days are consumed in smoke, and my bones scorched like a hearth”; when he said “my bones cling to my flesh” and “I am a pelican of the wilderness” and “an owl of the waste places”; when he said those things, was he rejoicing? (Psalm 102). When Heman the Ezrahite said “I have cried out for help, and in the morning my prayer comes before You. O Lord, why do You reject My soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? . . . I suffer Your terrors; I am overcome. Your burning anger has passed over me; Your terrors have destroyed me. They have surrounded me like water all the day long; they have encompassed me altogether. You have removed lover and friend far from me; my acquaintances are in darkness” (Psalm 88): When he said all that, was he rejoicing?

Did Jesus rejoice in everything? Did Jesus rejoice at the grave of Lazarus? Did he rejoice when His disciples couldn’t cast out the demon at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration? Did he rejoice when His disciples competed with one another for honors instead of taking up the cross and following Him? Did He rejoice in Gethesemane? Did he rejoice when His disciples forsook Him and fled, and when Peter denied Him? Did He rejoice in the false accusations that were brought against Him? Did He rejoice when soldiers mocked and beat Him, when they spat at Him, when the Jews mocked Him? Was he rejoicing on the cross? Can we do better than Jesus?

-Can Paul mean what he says here? Isn’t he exaggerating just for effect? The short answer is, Yes he means what he says; and no, he is not exaggerating for effect. Paul, after all, had shared in the sufferings of Christ. Paul knew what it was like to take the cross and follow Jesus. The Paul who exhorts us to “rejoice always” knew far more hardship than any of us would in ten lifetimes: prisons, beatings beyond counting, whipped by the Jews five times, beaten with rods three times, stoned three times, shipwrecked, threatened by the sea, by highway robbers, by hypocritical Christians, and always anxious about the state of the churches he had planted. When he wrote Philippians, we all know, he was in prison, waiting for who knows what. In this very context, he enumerates some of the circumstances in which he rejoices. He knows what it means to get by on nothing; he knows hunger and need. He knows what it means to be without basic necessities. He knew what it was to be in want, to be without. Yet, the same Paul who experiences hunger and need is the Paul who exhorts the Philippians, “Rejoice always.”

But how? How are we supposed to rejoice when we’re being beaten, when we’re being slandered, when we’re sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Paul points to the “how” in the next verse of Philippians 4: Rejoice always, he says. Then he notes the connection between joy and forbearance. Rejoice always, and let your patience be known to all. Continual rejoicing makes us patient. Then he gives the basis for the exhortation: “The Lord is at hand.” Paul rejoices because of the coming promise of the Lord’s presence. Paul can rejoice in all circumstances because he knows that the Lord is near.

-Throughout Scripture, joy is an effect of being in the presence of God. The sanctuary was the place of God’s presence, and before His face Israel was to gather to eat and drink and rejoice before Him. “In Your presence is fullness of joy,” Psalm 16:11. “You make the king blessed forever; you make him joyful with gladness in Your presence” (Psalm 21:6). “Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with Psalms” (Psalm 95:2). Jude concludes his epistle commending the people of God to the one who “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24).

Joy is an effect of being before the face of God because, according to the prophet Zephaniah, the Lord Himself is full of all the fullness of joy. Zephaniah’s prophecy doesn’t begin with a call to joy, but with the opposite. Though prophesying during the reign of the faithful king Josiah, Zephaniah begins his prophecy with a terrifying description of judgment. Things are falling apart. Creation – sky, land, sea – is unraveling (1:2-3). Yahweh threatens to remove all things from the earth – man and beast from the earth, birds from the sky, fish from the sea, man from the land. Creation is being reversed. And so is the exodus. Once Yahweh stretched out His hand against Egypt. He bared His arm and stretched it out against Pharaoh. But now, he says, He is going to stretch out His hand against Judah, and cut off Jerusalem. Once he toppled and humiliated the gods of Egypt; now, He is going to humble and shame the gods of Judah, that is, Baal and all his idolatrous priests, Milcom and those who swear by Him.

Judah has been under threat, in darkness. And they are crying out for deliverance. They are hoping in the day of Yahweh, but Zephaniah says that the day of Yahweh is not going to be the kind of day that they are hoping for: Not a day of light and hope and deliverance, but a day of wrath, trouble, distress, clouds, and darkness for His people (1:14-15). Zephaniah calls Judah to humble themselves to escape Yahweh’s wrath (2:3). By the end of this short prophecy, another “day” has dawned (3:16). Through the refining fire of Yahweh’s judgment, He purifies His people. A humble remnant remains, full of faith (3:12). Yahweh chases away the enemies of Jerusalem (3:13, 19) and He rescues the lame and outcasts (3:19). All the evils that Judah has suffered are going to be reversed. There will be a new creation, a new exodus as Yahweh gathers the people He had scattered.

More importantly of all, Israel’s day of gloom turns to a day of light and joy because Yahweh Himself comes to be in the midst of His people, and in the midst of His people He will be a victorious warrior. Yahweh Himself will rejoice and shout over His bride (3:17), and Zion and Israel are caught up in His exultation. Noti
ce the connections between verses 14 and 17. Daughter Zion is supposed to shout for joy. Why? Because Yahweh is in her midst, “rejoicing with shouts of joy.” Israel is to rejoice and exalt with all her heart? Why? Because Yahweh her lover has returned, and exults over her with joy.

This is not merely a matter of Israel responding to the joy of Yahweh’s presence. It’s about Israel being caught up into the joy of Yahweh Himself. Yahweh comes rejoicing to His people; He comes dancing and singing and exulting; He comes in triumph, and daughter Zion and daughter Jerusalem join in with the Song.

That is the joy that breaks out at the coming of Jesus. Luke’s gospel especially captures this. As soon as the announcement is made, song begins to break out everywhere. Mary sings when she visits Elizabeth. Filled with the Spirit, Zecharias sings when John is named. Angels sing to the shepherds, and Simeon sings when he sees the infant Jesus in the temple. Everywhere the news comes, song breaks out. The Spirit brings joy.

This is the joy that Jesus speaks of in our gospel lesson, the joy that should greet His coming. According to Jesus, this same movement from mourning to dancing that Zephaniah describes takes place at His coming. When asked by John’s disciples whether He is the “Coming One” (Matthew 11:3), Jesus quotes Isaiah (v. 5; cf. Isaiah 61:1). He could just as well have quoted Zephaniah 3:19, with its promise of mercy to the lame. Jesus’ works and His ministry are evidence that the time has come, the day of light and joy that Zephaniah spoke about. Jesus’ works show that the Lord is in the midst of Israel, exulting in joy and singing over His bride like a victorious warrior.

John’s ministry, Jesus goes on to say, was a ministry of preparation, the ministry of the Lord’s “angel” sent ahead to prepare for the Lord’s coming. Jesus quotes Malachi 3:1, but behind this is Exodus 23:20-33, which promises that Yahweh’s angel will be an advance guard to disrupt the Canaanites before Israel moves in to conquer. That’s John’s ministry: He sings a dirge to get people ready for the coming of the King. He warns the people as the angel that the King is coming.

But when the Son of Man comes, mourning ends and yields to joy (Matthew 11:16-19). That generation misses both tunes. The Jews don’t mourn with John, and don’t rejoice with Jesus. They are thus cut out of the joy of the Lord, the joy at His coming. The Pharisees are in the presence of the Lord. Yahweh has come in triumph. Angels are singing, and the heavenly Song of the angels has come to earth. Jesus comes as Yahweh incarnate, singing His song of triumph, rejoicing in His bride, rejoicing over her with love. His joy overflows and gives new life to the lame and brings the outcasts near. The Pharisees are in the presence of joy because they are in the presence of the Lord, but they grit their teeth and refuse to join in. Advent is about the Lord’s arrival. Advent says that the Lord is near, just at the door. For that reason, Advent is about joy, the joy of heaven come to earth, and the joy of God shared with men. In the Lord’s coming, he catches us up in His joy.

And so we return to Paul. Paul tells us to rejoice always, because the Lord is near. Because of the Lord’s arrival and presence, we can rejoice in every circumstance. God is omnipresent; He is never distant; He is nearer to us than anyone else, and even nearer than we are to ourselves. When we suffer hardships and needs, we should remind ourselves that God is still there, that we are still in the presence of God, and so we can rejoice. That’s true. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

But that doesn’t always meet our questions, complaints, and anguish. God is always there, but we don’t always know He’s there. God is always there, but sometimes we cry out and He doesn’t seem to hear us; sometimes we are on the cross, and cry out with Jesus, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” What happens when He doesn’t seem to be coming? What happens when we desperately want God to close the mouth of that friend who’s been lying, and God doesn’t do that? What happens when Jesus doesn’t descend with angels to break up the firing squad or disperse the lynch mob? What’s going on when He isn’t there, and there’s no sign of His coming? How can we rejoice in that?

Paul has something more dramatic and dynamic in mind. For Paul, we rejoice always not so much because God is always there, but because the Lord is always coming. He is “at hand,” near in time and not only in space. No matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, no matter what hardship or suffering we’re enduring, we can be sure that the Lord will come to our rescue. He’ll come to help us.

And that’s why we can rejoice even in hardship and tribulation. We rejoice in the presence of the Lord, sharing in His joy. But sometimes His presence and His joy is more hoped-for than known. This is why Paul elsewhere talks about joy in hope (Romans 5). We rejoice in tribulations not because we are ignoring the pain or because the pain isn’t real. We rejoice in tribulations because we know that tribulation will bear the fruit of perseverance, character, hope. And so we rejoice in the midst of tribulations because we are looking forward to sharing in the glory of the Lord; we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, not because that joy is fully realized here and now, but because it is being realized, and will be realized in the future. In this we are following Jesus, for Jesus went to the cross out of the “joy that was set before Him.”

Even then, even when everything in the present stands against joy; even when the Lord has hidden His face, and doesn’t appear to have any intention of showing it again; even when you are in the midst of painful tribulations and afflictions, even then you can rejoice, because you can rejoice in hope.

And you can rejoice in hope because of the Advent of the Lord. The Lord has so loved you that He gave His only Son. He became flesh for you, He suffered all the limits and frustrations of life for you, he was hated and opposed for you, He was arrested and tried for you, He was mocked and scourged and spat upon for you, He was sent to the cross for you.

He has come, and He came for you. And He won’t leave you. Rejoice in the Lord, rejoice always in the Lord of Advent, because the Lord who came will come again and again and again.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Bible - NT - Philippians

Previous Post

December 12, 2009

Baptism

Next Post

December 13, 2009 Prokofiev

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1-2 Samuel 1968 Abelard Abortion Abraham Acedia AD 70 Adam Smith Addiction Advent Advertising Aeneid Aesthetics Africa African Christianity African Church African religion Age Aging Agriculture Airline industry Alabama Alasdair MacIntyre Albania Alcohol Allegory Alms Alternative Medicine Ambrose America American Christianity American culture American economy American Evangelicals American Foreign Policy American history American Literature American Military American Politics American Religion American Revolution Anagogy Analytic Philosophy Anamnesis Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient history Ancient Near East Ancient Religion Angels Anglican Church Anglicanism Animism Anointing of the Sick Anselm Anthropology Anthropomorphism anti-Catholicism Antiquities Antonio Lopez apocalypse Apocalyptic Apocalyptic language Apostles Creed Aquinas Archeology Architecture Arianism Aristotle Ark of the Covenant Art Art History Ascension Aseity Assurance Athanasius Atheism Athens atonement Attention Attributes Augustine Austin Farrer Authority autonomy Avant-garde Awe Bach Ballooning Balzac Banking Bankruptcy Baptism Baptists Baseball Basketball Bavinck Beatitudes Beauty Behavioral Economics Being Benedict XVI Benjamin Benjamin Franklin Beowulf Berkeley Bernie Sanders Bertrand Russell Bestiary Bible Bible - criticism Bible - NT Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians Bible - NT - 1 John Bible - NT - 1 Peter Bible - NT - 2 Corinthians Bible - NT - 2 Peter Bible - NT - Acts Bible - NT - Colossians Bible - NT - Ephesians Bible - NT - Galatians Bible - NT - Gospels Bible - NT - Hebrews Bible - NT - James Bible - NT - John Bible - NT - Jude Bible - NT - Luke Bible - NT - Mark Bible - NT - Matthew Bible - NT - Paul Bible - NT - Philippians Bible - NT - Revelation Bible - NT - Romans Bible - NT - Thessalonians Bible - NT - Timothy Bible - OT Bible - OT - Amos Bible - OT - Chronicles Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Deuteronomy Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes Bible - OT - Esther Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Ezekiel Bible - OT - Ezra-Nehemiah Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Habakkuk Bible - OT - Hosea Bible - OT - Isaiah Bible - OT - Jeremiah Bible - OT - Job Bible - OT - Joel Bible - OT - Jonah Bible - OT - Joshua Bible - OT - Judges Bible - OT - Kings Bible - OT - Lamentations Bible - OT - Leviticus Bible - OT - Malachi BIble - OT - Micah Bible - OT - Nehemiah Bible - OT - Numbers Bible - OT - Pentateuch Bible - OT - Proverbs Bible - OT - Psalms Bible - OT - Ruth Bible - OT - Samuel Bible - OT - Song of Songs Bible - OT - Torah Bible - OT - Zechariah Bible - OT - Zephaniah Biblical Law Biblicism Billy Graham biography Biology Biololgy Biotechnology Blasphemy Blindness Blog news Blogging Blogroll Bloomsbury Group Bob Dylan Body Body symbolism Boethius Boko Haram Bonhoeffer Book of Common Prayer Books Botany Boundary Brexit Britain British History British Politics Bruce Springsteen Buddhism Bureaucracy Burial Business C. S. Lewis C. S. Peirce Calendars Caliphate Calvin calvinism Camille Paglia Canon Capitalism Cappadocians Carl Schmitt Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Catholicity Causation cemeteries Cervantes Charism Charismata Charity Charles Dickens Charles Hodge Charles Simeon Charles Taylor Charles Williams Chaucer Chermistry Chess Chesterton Chiasm children China Chinese Exclusion Act Chivalry Chopin Chretien de Troyes Christendom Christian Democracy Christian reconstruction Christianity in Britain Christianization Christmas Christology Chronology Church church and state Church architecture Church Calendar Church history Church of England Church Year Cicero Circumcision Cities City of God Civil Religion Civil Society Civil War Civility Classical Theism Classics Climate Change Clothing Coleridge Colloquy of Marburg Colonialism Color Comedy Comenius Commodity Communio Communism Community Comparative religions Computer Science Confederacy Confessionalization Conflict Congregations consciousness Consecration Conservatism Constantine Constitution consumerism Contra Faustum Conversion Coriolanus Cormac McCarthy Cosmology Cosmopolitanism Council of Trent Counter-culture Counter-insurgency Courage Courtly love Covenants Crafts Craftsmanship Cranach Creation Creativity Creator-creature Credit Crime Crime and Punishment Crisis Critical scholarship Criticism Cross Cubism Cultural theory Culture Culture War Dance Daniel Dennett Dante Darwin Dave Eggers David David Foster Wallace David Hume David Jones Deadly sins Death Debt Dechristianization Decolonization Deconstruction Defoe Deja vu Democracy Denis de Rougemont Denominationalism Derrida Descartes Developmental psychology Devils Diocletian Discipleship Disenchantment Disgust Diversion Diversity Divine energies Divine Impassibility Divine Simplicity Divine Warrior Doctrine dogma Dominion Donald Trump Dostoevsky Douglas Campbell Douglas Farrow Dreams Dualism Durkheim Dystopia E.M. Forster Early Christianity Early Modern Europe Easter Eastern Europe Eastern Orthodoxy Ecclesiology Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Eden Edgar Allan Poe Edmund Spenser Education Egypt Election Elites Emergence Emma Emotion Empire England English History English Reformation Enlightenment Entertainment Entrepreneur environmentalism Envy Epic Epiphany Episcopals Epistemology Epistles Equality Erasmus Ernst Kantorowicz Eros Eschatology Eternity Ethics Eucharist Europe Evangelicalism Evangelicals and Catholics Together Events Evil Evolution Exile Face Fairie Queene Fairy Tales Faith family Family and Marriage Fantasy Farming Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Fear Femininity Feminism Fertility Fetishization Feud Feudalism Feuerbach Fiction Figs Film Finance Finland Fire Flag Flags Flannery O'Connor Flood myths Folly Food football Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Foreknowledge Forgiveness Foucault Fracking France Francois Mauriac Franz Rosenzweig free will Freedom Freedom of God French Revolution Freud Funerals Future G. K. Chesterton Gambling Gaming Gay Marriage Gender gender identity Genealogy Geography George Berkeley George Eliot George Herbert; Poetry George Romanes Gerald Manley Hopkins Germany Gethsemane Gift Gifts Giorgio Agamben Global Christianity Global economics Globalism Globalization Glorious Revolution Gnosticism God's sovereignty Gods Goethe Golf Good Friday Gospel Gospels Gothic Gothic architecture Grace Grammar Gramsci Gratitude Greek Literature Greek Philosophy Greek Religion Greek Science Gregory of Nyssa Guillermo del Toro H. Richard Niebuhr Haiku hair Hamann Hamlet Handicap Handles Hands Hans Urs von Balthasar Happiness Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harvest healing Heaven Heavenly treasure Heavenly treasure Hebrew Bible Hebrew language Hegel Heidegger Hell Hellenism; Judaism; Revelation Henri de Lubac heresy Herman Dooyeweerd Hermeneutics Herod Heroic Heroism Hesiod Hidegard of Bingen Hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch Historicism Historiography History History - Early Modern History - Middle Ages Hoaxes Hobbes Holiness Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Home Homeless Homer Homosexuality Honor hope Horror Hospitality Housing Hugh of St. Victor Human Rights Humanism Humor hylomorphism Hymns Hypocrisy. Iago Iconoclasm Identity Ideology Idleness Idolatry Iliad Images Imagination Immigrant churches Immigrant Religion Immigration Imperialism Improvization Imputation Incarnation Incest India Individualism Indonesia Inequality Inerrancy Infant Baptism Infant mortality Infanticide Ingratitude Innovation Inspiration Institutions Insult Intellectual History Intellectuals Intelligent Design International Politics Internet Intimacy IQ Iran Iran-Iraq War Iraq Ireland Irony Islam Islamic State Islamism Ismail Kadare Israel Ivan Illich J. Gresham Machen J.N. Figgis Jacob Jacques Lacan James Bond James Jordan James Joyce James KA Smith James Wood Jane Austen Jane Jacobs Jealousy Jed Perl Jeff Koons Jeroboam Jesus Jewish War 66-70 AD Jihad Johann Georg Hamann Johannine Epistles John Ashbery John Behr John Bunyan John Calvin John Donne John Frame John Howard Yoder John Knox John Milbank John Milton John Owen John Rawls John Ruskin John Stuart Mill John the Baptist John Webster John Wesley John Williamson Nevin Jonathan Edwards Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Conrad Joseph Ratzinger Journalism Joy Judaism Judaize Judgment Judith Butler Jurgen Moltmann Justice Justification Kalevala Kant Karl Barth Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Rahner Kazakhstan Kazuo Ishiguro Kenneth Lonergan Kierkegaard King Lear Kingdom of God Kitsch Knighthood Knowledge Korea Labor movement Lactantius Lamech Lament Landscape Language Latin America Laughter Law Law and Punishment Leftism Lent Les Murray Levi-Strauss Levites Leviticus Liber Mundi Liberal arts Liberal Theology Liberalism Light Lighthouse Linguistics LIstening Literacy Literary structure Literature Liturgics Liturgy Locke Logic Love Luther Lutheran Lutheranism Lying Lytton Strachey Macbeth Machiavelli Machines Madness Mainline Manhattan Manicheanism Manners Manufacturing Manuscripts Mao Zedong Maps Marcion Marilynne Robinson Marketing Marriage Martha Nussbaum Martin Bucer Martin Chemnitz Martyrdom Marx Marxism Mary Mary Douglas masculinity Mass Materialism Mathematics Maundy Thursday Max Weber Media Mediation Medication Medicine Medieval Church Medieval exegesis Medieval Literature Medieval theology Medieval Thought Medievalism Memory Merchant of Venice Mesopotamian Religion Messianic Metaphor Metaphysics Methodist Mexican-American War Michel de Montaigne Michel Faber Middle Ages Middle East Midwifery Mikhail Bulgakov Military Millennium Mind Miracles Miscellaneous Mission missionaries Mixed constitution Modern self modernism Modernity monasticism Monotheism Monroe Doctrine Monsters Montaigne's Essays Moral philosophy Mormonism Moses Mother Teresa Motherhood Motive Mount of Olives Movies Multiculturalism Murder Music Musicals Mutability Mutability Mystery Mysticism myth N. T. Wright Narrative Nation-State Nationalism Natural Law Natural-Supernatural Nature Nature and culture Nature and Grace Nazi Nazirite Necrophilia Nero Nestorianism Neuroscience Nevin Lectures New Atheism New Testament New York City Newbigin News NGOs Nibelungenlied Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Lyra Nietzsche Nigeria Nihilism Nobel Prize Nobility Nominalism Norbert Elias Norman MacCaig nostalgia Novels Numerology Obama Objectivity and subjectivity Occasionalism Odysseus Oil Old Testament Oliver O'Donovan Ontology Origen original sin Orthodoxy Othello Owen Barfield Pacifism Pactum salutis Paedocommunion Paganism Pain Painting Paleoconservatism Palm Sunday Pannenberg Parenting Pascal Passions Passivity Pastoral Care Pastoral theology Patrick Modiano Patristics Patronage Paul Peace of God Peace of Westphalia Penal substitution Pentecost Pentecostalism Perichoresis Pericles Persecution Person Peter Peter Enns Petrarch Philip K. Dick Philip Melanchthon Philosophy Philosophy of Action Philosophy of History Philosophy of language Philosophy of science Phone booth Photography Physics Pictures Pierre Bourdieu Place Planned Parenthood Plants plato Play Plot Plotinus Pluralism Pneumatology Poetics poetry Poetry & Stories Poland police Political Philosophy Political theology Political Theory Politics Pop Culture Pope Francis Popular Culture Populism Pornography Porphyry Post-Colonial Theory Post-Structuralism Postmodernism Postmodernity Potential Poverty Power Practice Pragmatism Prayer Preaching Predestination Prediction Prehistory Premillennialism Presbyterian Priesthood Prince Charles Prison Reform privacy Private Prodigal Son Progress Progressivism Property Prophecy Prophet Propitiation Prosperity gospel Prostitution Protectionism Protestantism Providence Prudentius psalms Pseudo-Dionysus Psychological Warfare Psychology Public intellectual Public Life Public Philosophy Public Theology Publishing Punk Rock Pure nature Puritanism Purity Pushkin Putin Pythagoreanism R.J. Rushdoony Race Racism Radical Orthodoxy Rape Rationality Reactionary reading Realism Reason Red State Blue State Reformation Reformational Catholicism Reformational Philosophy Reformed theology refugees reinhold niebuhr Relationality Relativism Relics Religion Religion and science Religions Religious Freedom Religious Liberty Religious Right Renaissance Rene Girard Republican Party Resurrection Resurrection. Revelation Revelations Revenge Revivalism Revolution rhetoric Richard Flannagan Richard II Richard III Richard Wagner Richard Wilbur Righteousness Ritual Robert Frost Robert Herrick Robert Jenson Robert Mugabe Robert Spaemann Robinson Crusoe Rock n' Roll Rod Dreher Rodin Roman Catholicism Roman Empire Roman Religion Romance Romanticism Rome Rootedness Rosenstock-Huessy Rousseau Rowan Williams Rural America Russia Russian literature Russian Orthodoxy Rusty Reno Rwanda S. Y. Agnon Sabbath Sacrament Sacramental theology Sacraments Sacred Sacred Space Sacrifice saints Salt Sam Harris Same-sex marriage Sanctuary Satan Satire Saudi Arabia Scapegoat Scarcity Schism Schleiermacher Scholarship Science Science and Theology Science Fiction Scopes trial Scotland Scott Adams Scott Cairns Scottish Reformation Scotus Scripture and tradition sculpture Sea Second temple Secularism Secularization Self-Help Self-trust Semiotics Semper reformanda separation of church and state Sermon on the Mount Sex Sex Trafficking Sexual abuse Sexual Politics Sexual Revolution Sexuality Shakespeare Shame Culture Shema Sherlock Shopping Silence Simone Weil Simplicity Simpsons Sin Sincerity Sixties Skepticism Slavery Slavoj Zizek Sleep Sloth Social capital Social change Social Imaginary Social Science Socialism Socialization Sociology Sociology of Knowledge Sociology of Religion Sola scriptura Sonnets Sophocles Soteriology Soviet Union Space Spain Speculation Spinoza Spirit Sport Sports Star Trek State State-formation Stephen Masty Steven Bannon Strangers Structuralism structure Subject-object Substitution Suburbs Suffering Suicide Super-Rich Superheroes Supersessionism Supplication Supreme Court Surveillance Symbol Synagogue Taberancle Tabernacle Tax Taxes Tears Technology Teens Teleology Television Temple Ten Commandments Terence Terrence Malick Terrorism Thanksgiving The South The West Theodore Roosevelt Theogony Theological Education Theological Language Theology Theology - Anthropology Theology - Christology Theology - Covenant Theology - Creation Theology - Ecclesiology Theology - Eschatology Theology - Liturgical Theology - Pneumatology Theology - Soteriology Theology - Trinity Theology proper Theopolis Theopolis Institute Theosis Theresa May Thomas A. Clark Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas Mann Threshing Thucydides Time Tocqueville Tolerance Toleration Tolstoy Tom Wolfe Tools Torah Torture Toscanini Totalitarianism Trade Tradition Tragedy Transhumanism Translation Transubstantiation Travel Trees Trinitarianism Trinity Trinity House Tristan Troilus and Creysede Trump Trump Truth Turkey Twelfth Night Two Kingdoms Typology Ukraine Ulysses Uncanny Uncategorized Uniform Union with Christ United States Unity University Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Value Vatican II Vengeance Vico Victorian Age Victorian Literature Vienna Violence Virgil Virgin Birth Virginia Woolf Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Solovyev Vladimir Solovyov W.H. Auden Walls Walt Disney Walt Whitman Walter Benjamin Walter Lippmann War Wars of Religion Washington DC Wealth Weddings Will William Carlos Williams William Gilpin William Golding Wine Wisdom wonder Word of God Wordsworth Work Works World Council of Churches World History World War I World War II Worldview Worship Wrath Writing Youth Youth Ministry Yuja Wang Yves Congar Zimbabwe Zwingli Zygmunt Bauman

Select a Month January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter Jesus Paul James