Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If 1 Chronicles were a movie, it would begin with two hours and forty-five minutes of credits: Name after name scrolling across the screen, most of them (as far as we’re concerned) obscurities and nonentities and unknowns, forgotten fathers and sons and mighty men; all the bit players in the…
Let me locate myself. I’m sitting on a sand dune, three hundred feet above the blue-as-a-swimmer-crab water of Lake Michigan. I’m so high above the surface that the sound of the waves flopping onto the beach is as quiet as wind easing through a screen door. Around me are several…
My title is too grand. What I offer here falls far short of a full description of poetry. I barely offer a definition. A more accurate title would be “Axioms and Suspicions About Poetry.” Axioms first. I have three of them. The first is the closest I can come to…
In his book In Defense of Food Michael Pollan does just what the title suggests, he defends food. Pollan argues that the presupposition behind modern food science, or “nutritionism” as he calls it, is that humans don’t need food, they need nutrients. To be sure, modern science is not yet…
The early church took possession of the Roman Empire within a few centuries, largely because she ministered sacrificially in word and deed. The church provided services and care that the empire and pagan religions could not in times of crisis. The faithful witness of those serving Christians bore great fruit…
My title, “The Original Murder” will be understood by many readers, if not almost all, to refer to Cain’s murder of Abel, but I have in mind the very first murder, the one which Jesus pointed to when He said that Satan was a murderer “from the beginning.” “You are…
Showing page 128 of 309
Showing page 2 of 43
David S. Cunningham’s book Faithful Persuasion is a defense of doing theology in a rhetorical mode. Among other things, he offers a devastating deconstruction of an argument for the historical critical method of exegesis. First, he quotes Benjamin Jowett: It may be laid down that Scripture has one meaning —…
There’s a nice twist in Luke 8:39 that indicates how Luke understands Jesus’ relationship to God. Jesus tells the Gadarene demoniac to “return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.” The healed demoniac “went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus…
In Luke 5 and 8, two stories are told that may shed some interesting light on the question of justification. In 5:17-26, men lower a man on a bed through the roof of a house so that Jesus can heal him. Verse 20 says “seeing their faith, Jesus said, ‘Man,…
Another thought from Luke, this time chapter 3. The genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 contains 77 names. Several commentators suggest that the names are arranged in 11 groups of 7, and that there is a pattern of 7s (groups of 2 and 3 7s) that provides an overview of…
In Simeon’s song in Luke 2, he says that Jesus will cause the “fall and rising” of many in Israel. “Rising” translates ” anastasis ,” the word for resurrection. That may help to explain the sequence (fall—rise, rather than rise—fall). Simeon is perhaps not talking only about people being cast…
The exhortation from August 17, 2003: Ancient heretics tried to deny it, and modern heretics do the same, but Luke could hardly make it clearer that Jesus is the human God. Throughout the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, Luke uses the word “Lord” to describe the God of Israel. Gabriel…
Showing page 2210 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
