Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
References to the Son of Man coming on the clouds occur five times in the Synoptic Gospels. Three times such expressions appear in the parallel accounts of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:36; Luke 21:27). Then, in parallel accounts of Jesus’ trial before the leaders of Israel, such expressions…
Just what the difference is in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is a question not so easily answered. The distinction is often said to be that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is on the believer, but in the New…
1. Introduction You should think of 1917 at church on Sunday. Why? Let me explain. There's one film every Oscar season which everyone seems to have watched—your parents, your colleagues, even your pastor. This year, it's 1917— Sam Mendes' WW1 epic following two British Tommies on a seemingly impossible quest…
This piece was originally part of the Bowyer response to the Theopolis series surrounding Professor McDermott’s essay, “Rethinking Israel.” For the sake of brevity, it was removed from the initial response, to be published as a standalone piece. As we’ve argued previously , we are strongly supportive of the right…
Richard Bauckham’s groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony , is profoundly insightful, but the message of the book is hampered by the presupposition of Marcan priority. Ironically the place where this assumption perhaps does its most damage is in Bauckham’s discussion of the apostle Matthew…
The Protestant Reformation was defined by certain clarifying disagreements between the medieval Church and those who came to be known as Protestant Reformers. Chief among these was the nature of justification: whether one was justified by works, or by faith and works, or—as Martin Luther contended—by faith alone. Now over…
Showing page 70 of 309
Showing page 18 of 43
In an essay on Poe in NYRB , Marilynne Robinson observes that “the horror that fascinated [Poe] and gave such dreadful unity to his tales is often the inescapable confrontation of the self by a perfect justice, the exposure of a guilty act in a form that makes its revelation…
Proverbs 6:16-20 lists seven things that God finds abominable and hateful. It’s a rich text. For starters, the “seven” stands out. God loves His creation since it is good; what He hates is a seven-fold inversion of creation. At the very least, we can say that the wicked person who…
The TLS review of the two-volume collection of The Poetry of Robert Herrick (edited by Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly) gives a brief review of Herrick’s reputation in the modern world. That reputation has been determined by attitudes to what the reviewer calls Herrick’s “gargantuan” appetite for the miniature. As…
John Milbank has written that John Duns Scotus is “the turning point in the destiny of the West.” Milbank focuses on Scotus’s notion of the “univocity of being,” which, according to Milbank, treated God and creation as encompassed by the larger, common reality of “being.” On the Scotist view, God’s…
President Obama wants European countries to do a better job of assimilating Muslims. Easy for an American President to say. Much harder for European nations to accomplish. George Friedman argues at Stratfor that “The current crisis has its origins in the collapse of European hegemony over North Africa after World…
Writing at Stratfor , George Friedman offers a sobering, pessimistic view of the future of Islam in Europe: “We are entering a place that has no solutions. Such a place does have decisions, and all of the choices will be bad.” At the moment, he admits, “It is difficult to…
Showing page 475 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
