Theologia et Vita

Standing to the End: Exegesis and Practical Theology of the Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10–20) J. Neil Daniels Introduction Ephesians 6:10–20 is one of those passages whose familiarity can produce a kind of interpretive drowsiness. We assume we know what it says, and therefore we stop listening for the layers. Yet Paul’s final exhortation is not a detachable devotional on personal courage. It is a carefully placed climax that gathers the letter’s central themes—Christ’s exalted authority, the church’s new identity, the ethical shape of the new humanity, and the reality of hostile powers—into a single, urgent summons to persevering faith.¹ Several modern interpreters class this unit as a peroratio, a concluding rhetorical crescendo designed to “arouse to action,” not merely to summarize.² That judgment fits the internal logic of the epistle. After exhorting households (5:22–6:9), Paul widens the lens to the entire church, and he does so with the sharp tonal pivot of someone who knows t...

Baptism and the Question of Necessity: A Critical Examination of Catholic Sacramental Theology J Neil Daniels Abstract: This study offers a sustained critique of the Roman Catholic doctrine that water baptism is “necessary for salvation,” arguing that the modern Catholic formulation is exegetically unsupported, historically unstable, and internally incoherent. Drawing upon detailed textual analysis—including disputed passages such as Mark 16:16, John 3:5, Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16, and 1 Peter 3:21—this essay demonstrates that none of the New Testament’s baptismal references requires a sacramental interpretation, and several explicitly contradict it. Particular attention is given to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§1257–1261), where baptismal necessity is asserted and then immediately qualified by four expansive exceptions: baptism of blood, explicit baptism of desire, implicit baptism of desire, and the salvation of the invincibly ignorant. These categories permit the fu...

  When the Fire Does Not Go Out: Facing the Reality of Eternal Punishment J. Neil Daniels  The renewed skirmish over eternal punishment—ignited again by Kirk Cameron’s recent nod toward annihilationism—reminds me how cyclical these debates are. Every decade or so, someone with a popular platform revives the hope that judgment might not be quite as dreadful as the church has always insisted. It’s a tempting hope, frankly. Annihilationism offers a softer landing, a kind of metaphysical anesthesia: the wicked simply cease. But whenever this discussion resurfaces, I find myself returning to the same stubborn texts that resisted me all the way through my dissertation work. Those passages—e.g., Matthew 25:46; Revelation 14:11; 20:10—have a granite-like durability. Whatever interpretive gymnastics one attempts, the stubborn parallelism of “eternal life” and “eternal punishment,” the smoke that “rises forever and ever,” and the devil’s being “tormented day and night unto the ages of t...

Contending Without Being Contentious: Guarding Truth with a Steady Heart J. Neil Daniels  There’s a strange tension we live with as Christians who care about truth. On the one hand, the New Testament consistently warns us that doctrine is not a hobby but the lifeblood of the church. Paul didn’t tell Timothy to “dabble” in sound words; he told him to guard them as if wolves were already circling the flock. And they were. They still are. Error rarely shows up wearing a neon sign. It creeps along the edges, half-truths stitched to pious language, and before anyone realizes it, the center shifts. So yes, contending for the faith matters. It has always mattered. But contention is easier than contending. Anyone with a keyboard can become quarrelsome. You’ve seen this—some well-meaning brother gets hold of a doctrinal point like a terrier with a rope and forgets that the person he’s speaking to is, well, a person. I’ve done it myself. You fire off a response thinking you’re Luther at Worm...