Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a February blog post for the Theopolis Institute, Benoît Engel offers a thought-provoking challenge to the widely accepted five-discourse structure of Matthew’s Gospel, proposing a sixth discourse in Matthew 21:28–22:14 to reframe the Gospel’s chiastic center. As someone deeply invested in Matthew’s literary design—explored in my book Reading Matthew,…
Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9 Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.…
Theopolis publishes many polemics, especially on the Sacraments. This piece does not necessarily reflect the views of Theopolis, her board, or her editors. -JW Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the…
There is in the United States and the Western World some sort of religious revival occurring. Gen Z men—males born between ca 1997 and 2012—are flooding back in to churches. USA Today noted that Gen Z men—and to a lesser degree women—attending churches more than their millennial predecessors and they…
The primary task of many Biblical scholars (as they see it) is to explain how and why the Biblical text acquired its final form—i.e., what source material it used, how that material was expanded/redacted, who expanded/redacted it, why they did so, what the weather was like at the time, etc.…
Galatians 5:5-15 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from…
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Zedekiah was the last Davidic king in Judah, and like many of his predecessors he “did evil in the sight of Yahweh.” We might imagine he oppressed the people, promoted idolatry, persecuted prophets, ignored God’s commandments and His prophets. We know from the book of Jeremiah Jehoiakim did all this,…
Louis Dupre suggests that modern thought is riven by a fundamental tension. On the one hand, the real is still conceived, as it classically has been, as an unchanging order, while on the other hand the subject determines meaning and value. Modern thought, to put it otherwise, is caught between…
Proverbs 15:6, translated according to the original Hebrew order, reads: “In the house of the righteous treasure aplenty; but in the revenue of the wicked disturbance.” Two structures overlap and interact here. There is the chiastic order: A. house B. righteous C. treasure C’. revenue B’. wicked A’. disturbance According…
Jesus said that we should be wise as serpents, but how are serpents wise? Genesis 3:1 says that the serpent was more “crafty” (ARUM) than any of the beasts of the field, and the same word is used a number of times in Proverbs, often translated as “prudent.” A crafty…
OK, one trouble, a trouble: There are, we are told, “three views” of the function of Matthew 1:1 - it’s the heading for the genealogy, it’s the heading for the whole book, or it’s the heading for the first section of the book (perhaps extending to 4:16). Why has it…
The logic of Scripture often moves from head to body: What Jesus did, His disciples are to do; we are to have the mind that was in Christ Jesus; we are to follow Him, not He us. Yet, the sequence of Matthew is inverted in several places. Before Jesus is…
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