Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
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The resurrection was a judicial act, the Father's response to Jesus who “handed himself over to the righteous Judge” (1 Peter 2:23). But what is the verdict? What is the Father saying about Jesus, to Jesus, to us, in the resurrection? Raymund Schwager ( Jesus in the Drama of Salvation…
In his 1956 The Cinema, or The Imaginary Man, Edgar Morin observes that cinema might have been turned to practical uses instead of spectacle. Its fate could have been the fate of the flying machine and the automobile: “All the commentaries in 1896 looked toward the scientific future of the…
In Exodus, Israel moves, as James Jordan has long said, from slavery to Sabbath. That is a beautiful summary of the book, but it must be filled out. The full movement is from slavery to Sinai to Sabbath. Sinai is a way-station, and a necessary one, on the way to…
Jesus was a unifier - of his opponents as much as of his followers. As Raymund Schwager says, Jesus turned “all sections of the Jewish leadership against him,” and this was “a decisive factor in their cooperation” ( Jesus in the Drama of Salvation , 89, quoting R. Pesch). He…
In Raymund Schwager's dramatic analysis of the atonement, Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom of His good Father, meets rejection and begins to warn of judgment, and then, in a surprising twist, Himself goes to judgment. Jesus' subjection to judgment does not relieve His opponents of judgment. On the contrary, they…
Why did Jesus die on a cross? Thomas asks ( ST III, 46, 4). He gives a variety of answers: Adam sinned at a tree, so Jesus saves at a tree; Jesus suffered in the air to purify the atmosphere; Jesus was elevated in death to show us the way…
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