http://www.leithart.com Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:55:15 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en INTRODUCTION Jesus is the new Elisha, forming an Israel in the midst of old Israel. That new Israel is supposed to be characterized by humility, brotherhood and brotherly correction, and forgiveness. THE TEXT “Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/06/4430/ Jesus says that whatever the church binds on earth is bound in heaven. The judgments of the church are not merely human judgments but communications of divine judgment. From the perspective of the Old Testament, Jesus is telling the disciples that they have entered into the status of ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/05/new-adams/ Matthew 18:15: If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. We often attack egalitarianism around here, and rightly so. God created a complex world, and things are not simply interchangeable with other things. Women are not the same as ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/05/baptismal-meditation-27/ Responding to the quotations from Carlos Eire I posted a few days ago, Steven Wedgeworth points me to this from the Institutes, Book 2, where Calvin describes our bondage to Satan.  He's not talking about the origin of idolatry, but it's clear that Calvin gives the demons their due: "That man ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/04/calvin-and-the-devil/ Carlos Eire argues (in John Calvin and Roman Catholicism) that Calvin develops a secular account of the rise of religion.  Unlike Augustine and the Catholic tradition, Calvin locates the source of false religion in the human imagination, and leaves demonic activity completely out of the picture.  As an early "armchair ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/01/calvin-and-secularization/ George Friedman at www.stratfor.com compares the current crisis to the S&L crisis during the 1980s: "In the 1970s, regulations on savings and loans (S&Ls) had changed. Previously, S&Ls had been limited to lending in the consumer market, primarily in mortgages for homes. But the regulations shifted, and they became allowed to ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/01/bailout/ Veli-Matti Karkkainen points out that Philippians 2:9-11 alludes to Isaiah 45:22-23, where Yahweh declares Himself to be the one and only God, before whom "every knee will bow" and by whom "every tongue will swear."  Thus, "for Paul the resurrected and exalted Christ enjoys the same status as the God ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/10/01/jesus-as-yahweh/ Margreta de Grazia's recent book on Hamlet looks to be a beauty.  She claims that modern interpretations (since 1800) have missed the main premise of the play - namely, that Hamlet is dispossessed of his place and realm, and that the entire court agrees with the dispossession.  Only in private, ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/29/hamlet-without-hamlet/ Through Hamann, Luther became a formative influence to modern thought.  Beiser writes, "It was Hamann's mission to defend the spirit of Luther when the Aufklarung threated to destroy it.  Hamann never made any disguise of his great debt to Luther, and he explicitly affirmed his wish to see a restoration ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/29/lutheran-romantics/ Beiser again, commenting on Hamann's influence in the 19th century: "One devotee of Hamann's was F. W. J. Schelling, whose Positivephilosophie reflects Hamannian themes.  Another avid student of Hamann's was F. Schlegel, who wrote one of the first appreciative essays on Hamann's philosophy.  Still another admirer was G. W. F. ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/29/hamanns-influence-again/ Frederick Beiser (The Fate of Reason) laments the obscurity of Hamann in Anglo-American philosophy.  His influence on German intellectual history was notable: "Hamann was the father of the Sturm und Drang, the intellectual movement that grew up in Germany during the 1770s in reaction against the Aufklarung.  His influence on ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/29/hamanns-influence/ INTRODUCTION Jesus and His disciples are “sons” of the great King of the temple (17:25-26), and therefore they are brothers of Jesus and one another. The rest of chapter 18 tells us how brothers treat each other. THE TEXT “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/29/sermon-notes-21/ A few inconclusive suggestions about the strange story at the end of Matthew 17. First, I take the majority view that the tax in question is the temple tax, and that helps to explain the distinction of sons and strangers that Jesus makes.  In a temple context, the sons are those ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/28/sons-and-strangers/ Matthew 18:4: Whoever humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Children are blessings from the Lord, but how are they blessings? In many ways: There are daily delights in having little children around the house, and there are deeper joys in watching children grow ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/28/baptismal-meditation-26/ I fell for it.  Hamann begins a brief discussion of the temporality of truth apparently agreeing with Mendelssohn, "I, too, know of no eternal truths except those who are unceasingly temporal."  Stephen Dunning (Tongues of Men) explains the dense irony of the statement.  Hamann is responding to Mendelssohn's threefold classification ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/27/hamann-and-mendelssohn/ Hamann writes, "The spirit of observation and the spirit of prophecy are the wings of human genius.  All that is present belongs to the domain of the former; all that is absent, the past and the future, belongs to the domain of the latter.  Philosophical genius expresses its power through ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/27/observation-and-prophecy/ Hamann ("Metacritique") says that "words as undetermined objects of empirical concepts are entitled critical appearances, specters, non-words or unwords, and become determinate objects for the understanding only through their institution and meaning in usage.  This meaning and its determination arises, as everyone knows, from the combination of a word-sign, which ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/27/words-and-meanings/ Hamann agreed with Mendelssohn that there are "no eternal truths save as incessant temporality," and in this he locates the difference between Judaism and Christianity: "it is solely a matter of temporal truths of history, which occurred once and never come again - of facts which have become true at ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/27/temporality-of-truth/ Hamann from "Golgotha and Sheblimini": "the entire range of human events and the whole course of their vicissitudes would be encompassed and divided into subsections just as the starry firmament is divided into figures, without knowing the stars' number.  Hence the entire history of the Jewish people, by the allegory ... http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/27/prophetic-history/ Before God tells creatures to "be fruitful and multiply," He blesses them.  Blessing is a verbal pronouncement that proliferates.  But so is curse: "Your sorrows will be multiplied," Yahweh tells Eve at the gate of the garden, and later wicked people multiply on the earth, long before the righteous do. http://www.leithart.com/2008/09/27/multiplied-curse/