Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In an earlier paper 1 I argued that the story of Jonah belongs in the book of KINGS. Jonah and the unnamed Judean prophet in 1K13 are paired by the author through literary links. The Judean prophet travels longitudinally to confront national paganism and is killed but not swallowed by…
The Scriptures have much to say about “the day.” “This is the day that the Lord has made,” sings the Psalmist (Psalm 118:24). But what exactly is the day ? Or, more broadly, what even is a day? Days make up human life like water, light, and air. There’s no…
According to the Westminster Confession of Faith 21:5, “God is to be worshipped everywhere, in spirit and truth, …” A similar phrase is found in the OPC’s Directory for Public Worship (II.6). In my experience in the OPC and other Reformed churches, the phrase is often interpreted to mean that…
Introduction In Genesis 3:16, after the fall, God said that Eve would “desire” her husband and that her husband would “rule” over her. It is popular for Christians to interpret Eve's desire as sinful, that she would try to usurp her husband's authority. Likewise, some interpret Adam's rule as sinful,…
White Western/Christian society has long discriminated against lesbians and homosexuals — ever since the days of Moses — who was neither white nor Christian, but that is beside the point — who claimed that God gave him revelation about what a man or woman is and how they should relate…
They Found a Book in a Wall, You Won’t Believe What Happens Next The secret behind the history of quiet times will make your quiet times more effective than ever. One of the enduring mysteries of American Evangelicalism is the question of the source of Quiet Times: A Handbook ,…
Showing page 38 of 309
Showing page 2 of 43
Desmond points out that an origin but be both one and more than one: “even if we want to say that the origin of coming to be possesses some kind of ‘unity’ with itself, this ‘unity’ cannot be univocal. Why so? Because, such a univocal unity would be hard to…
William Desmond ( Being and the Between ) points out that humans continue to experience a “surge of mind’s self-transcendence” in the face of skeptical arguments from empiricists and idealists. Metaphysics won’t stay down, and the attempt to keep it down is a self-defeating attempt to suppress the wonder at…
Milton describes the hoards of fallen angels as scattered, fallen leaves: “thick as Autumnal leaves.” What does this mean? What’s the point of comparison? Is it merely: There are lots of fallen angels, just as there are lots of fallen leaves in your yard? The repetition of “fallen” in the…
Milton describes Satan’s spear as “equal which the tallest Pine / Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast / of some great Ammiral.” In his translation of the Iliad , Pope describes the death of Sarpedon: “as some mountain Oak, or Poplar tall / or pine (fit mast for…
Hollander quotes this evocative passage from Thoreau, who describes the sound of distant church bells: “The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the…
Hollander quotes the final sentence of “The Dead”: “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” The chiasm of “falling faintly” and “faintly falling” makes it feel…
Showing page 1517 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
