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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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Sins Stuck to Heaven

A heavenly voice (Revelation 18:4) tells the saints to flee Babylon because her sins have “piled” to heaven (v. 5). That translation is questionable. The verb kollao means to “cling,” as a marriage man clings to his wife (Matthew 19:5; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:16-17; Genesis 2:24, LXX) or as dust…

November 4, 2015

Double Double Retribution

Revelation 18:6 is made of two chiastic sentences that double back on each other. A. Pay B. her B'. as also she A'. paid. And: A. Double double according to her works B. in the cup C. she mixed C'. mix B'. her A'. double. Verse 7 says that she…

November 4, 2015

City Depopulated and Repopulated

The opening description of Babylon in Revelation 18 suggests a city depopulated and repopulated. The people have been moved out, and in their place it has been infested with impurity. There are four categories of new inhabitants: demons and unclean spirits, unclean and abominable birds, and they are divided into…

November 3, 2015

A Brief for Sabellius

Christian Faith , Brian Gerrish's new dogmatics, is well named, echoing as it does Schleiermacher's classic text. Gerrish is Schleiermachian in many ways, not least in his repetition of what has become, after Barth, one of Schleiermacher's most notorious gestures: His placement of the doctrine of the Trinity at the…

November 3, 2015

Memory, Meaning, Metaphor

“Memory is the sine qua non of the creation of meaning,” writes Nicholae Babuts in his Literature and the Metaphoric Universe in the Mind . “Human beings are capable of interpreting the world because they remember not only the moments that have just elapsed, but also events that have taken…

November 3, 2015

Sons of God, Daughters of Men

In her contribution to Medieval Exegesis & Religious Difference , Nina Caputo analyzes Nahmanides' interpretation of the sons of God/daughters of men passage in Genesis 6. The notion that the passage was about angelic intercourse with humans was already current, but Nahmanides rejected it. He wrote, “The correct interpretation in…

November 2, 2015

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