The Calvinist International
At the end of the Book of Ruth, Boaz redeems the Moabitess Ruth, and the people and elders of the city say to Boaz: “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily […]
Another poem of Melanchthon’s, this time a prayer in verse (the meter is elegiacs) based upon the story of the Rich Man (or Dives) and Lazarus in Luke 16, written in 1539. “A Prayer taken from Luke 16, concerning Lazarus” Sick and rough with sores all over my body, I lie here, and my limbs perish […]
The Calvinist doctrine of God is sometimes caricatured as naked voluntarism, the triumph of the will: God is sheer power and does what he likes–as if to say Calvin comes down on one side of the Euthyphro dilemma, the side that says the pious is pious because it is loved by God, his loving it makes […]
It would be something of an understatement to say that Matthew 16.19 has been a crux interpretum: 19 δώσω σοι τὰς κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν δήσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν λύσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. “I will give to you the keys […]
In the first pericope of Luke 9, Jesus gives his Apostles their marching orders, and the ring composition with variation tells us something interesting about their mission. Συγκαλεσάμενος δὲ τοὺς δώδεκα ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς δύναμιν καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ δαιμόνια καὶ νόσους θεραπεύειν, 2 καὶ ἀπέστειλεν αὐτοὺς κηρύσσειν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἰᾶσθαι [τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς], 3 καὶ εἶπεν […]