Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I just finished re-reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday . I have in the past had the temerity to say that I believe it to be the best novel of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I still maintain that it is at least one…
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be…
I was inspired to write this article after reading John Ahern’s The Case for Shorter Hymnals first published on Theopolis Institute’s website on November 16, 2021. Mr. Ahern and I are writing with different audiences and emphases in mind. I am thankful we both share a mutual desire to see…
If you’ve spent any time in the social-media galaxy of Christian cultural commentators, you have almost definitely run across the Latin phrase Imago Dei . It means image of God . Why they usually say it in Latin, I couldn’t tell you. We saw it in the wake of the…
The Gospel of Matthew—indeed, the New Testament—begins with a list of names, and that list of names is introduced by this heading: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why start like this? Why “the son of David” and “the son…
A blade is raised. A child wails. But the brow under the crown is untroubled. Solomon knows that the raising of the sword will reveal the true parent and the identity of the son. But how did he know this? Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac certainly bears some of the…
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The fifth commandment – Honor your father and your mother – is a counter-cultural demand. Many in our time live according to the 1960s maxim, Question authority. It’s apparently an authoritative command, and it applies in the family as well as everywhere else. But the counter-cultural character of this commandment…
English translations typically say that Israel remembers the Sabbath to “ keep it holy.” That implies that the day is already holy, and that Israel maintains its holiness by ceasing. That is true; Israel’s consecration of the day depends on Yahweh’s prior consecration of the day (v. 11). In some…
The Fourth Word begins with: “Memorialize the day of ceasing to sanctify it.” I’m using the verb “memorialize” or “commemorate” rather than “remember.” It’s not a command to “call to mind.” Of course, Israel isn’t to forget. But it wouldn’t be enough for Israel to call the Sabbath to mind…
Reading Revelation 6-7, we might unthinkingly assume that four horsemen, the martyrs, the sealing of the 144,000 are things contained in the book. That can’t be true. This is a scroll, and you can’t read the contents of a sealed scroll until all of the seals have been opened. The…
The Lord curses Cain in Genesis 4:12: "When you serve ( avad ) the ground ( adamah ), it will not give ( natan ) its strength ( koach ) to you." Invert that, and we have a fair summary of God's blessing, and a mini theology of the natural…
In his 1876 letter in Fors Clavigera , Ruskin muses on the import of the sons of Ham. Mizraim, Phut, and Sion represent three African powers and three natural environments, the watered plain, the desert, and the sea. Each also represents a certain stage of human development: "A. Egypt is…
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