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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John Gray ( Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals , 19) argues that “Among us, science serves two needs: for hope and censorship.” It feeds hope because science is the only institution where progress is evident: “The political projects of the twentieth century have failed, or achieved much…
The bracing premise of John Gray’s Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (xi-xii) is that liberal humanism is grounded in a “superstition” that is “further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world’s religions.” That superstition is a belief in progress, which outside of…
In his 1976 study of Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables, 1620-70 (Historical Publications) , J. Sears McGee uses the law’s “two tables” to distinguish Anglicans from Puritans. Puritans were men of the “first table,” Anglicans of the second. Both worked with the same “palette…
Visser ( Beyond Fate (Massey Lectures) (CBC Massey Lecture) , 43-4) makes the commonplace observation that Christianity dislodged the honor-shame patterns of the ancient world and replaced it with a sin-guilt nexus. Unlike many, Visser views this as a tremendous gain, even a liberation: “In recognizing wrongdoing as sin, we…
In her Beyond Fate (Massey Lectures) (CBC Massey Lecture ) (15-16) , the always-stimulating Margaret Visser describes the cultural achievement of making a “place” at table. For us Westerners, “Each diner sits on an upright, separate chair drawn up to a table on which is laid his or her ‘place.’…
In the twelfth book his Christian Topography , the sixth-century Italian known as Cosmas the Indian Navigator tries to show that biblical history is consistent with the best records of ancient pagans. “Best” means not -Greek. It’s a highly inaccurate, charming, amusing passage: “But the Chaldaeans and the Medes and…
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