Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
Showing page 83 of 309
Showing page 13 of 43
Colossians 1:13: He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. When Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke from heaven: “This is My beloved Son.” Paul refers to that event here when he describes salvation as a transfer from the authority…
“It was the Father’s good pleasure for the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things,” Paul writes in our sermon text. The Father sends the Son to renew all things because it pleases Him to do so. Nothing forces the Father. He doesn’t have to…
Near the beginning of On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patrictics Series) , Athanasius reviews various theories concerning the origin of the world. It cannot be the case that matter existed eternally, since that would be a limit on God. It also cannot be the case that the world is…
“Traditional societies are far more diverse in many of their cultural practices than are modern industrial societies,” writes Jared Diamond in his recent The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? . Modern societies are outliers on the spectrum. So it’s rather weird that “psychologists base most…
Esau is the original hairy ( se’ar ) man of the Bible (Genesis 25:25), and the reputation goes with the Edomites, his descendants, who live at Mount Shaggy (Seir; Genesis 14:6; 32:3; 33:14; etc.). He’s not the last hairy man. Nazirites are hairy (Numbers 6:5, 18; Judges 16:22), including the…
We are nearly ready to send out the first edition of our Trinity House email newsletter, In Medias Res . In the first issue, we give updates about Trinity House, I discuss the church’s response to gay marriage, and James Jordan translates and comments on Psalm 62. Sign up at…
Showing page 808 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
