Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Job appears in the Bible as a true story and it is regarded as such in other Scripture: As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the…
Thanksgiving is warfare. Gratitude is a weapon. Wield it well. Give thanks for the preparation. The hustle and bustle, the messy kitchen, the endless cleaning, the extra chairs, and stained tablecloths sing the song of hospitality. God desires that we prepare a place for friends and strangers, feasting and laughing,…
We often hear that, along with Leviticus, Ecclesiastes is the “most peculiar book,” lurking in the Bible’s back alley. 1 But it is high time that we retire this old dirge. God has concealed much gold here, therefore much glory is ours if we are careful to read Solomon’s wisdom…
1 Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? 2 Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth? Job 39 We have and we do, Lord God. Spring is calving season.…
For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh. - Exodus 35:2 The instructions for building the tabernacle end with a Sabbath command and the narrative about building begins with a Sabbath command, before…
High in the list of now forgotten sins is simony. It was not always so: the medieval schoolmen believed simony to be the worst of ecclesiastical crimes and waged a centuries long campaign to purge the Church of this financial and spiritual corruption. As the schoolmen robustly defined it, “simony…
Showing page 26 of 309
Showing page 2 of 43
In her contribution to The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature , Florence Sandler suggests that “Spenser presents to the Elizabethan reader a moral allegory with an Erasmian cast,” a “poem modelled on the Apocalypse” (150). The whole first book of the Fairie Queene , she suggests, can be…
God is a God of speech. Robert Jenson has said we worship a talkative God, The first thing we learn about God is that He creates by speaking. John 1 deepens our understanding of that by telling us that God not only speaks, but that speech is one of His…
Over at The Spectator , James Mumford offers a hard-hitting analysis of the response to the recent Anglican summit. Mumford doesn't analyze the summit itself, but the blustering response from politicians and the press: “On Thursday the Labour shadow cabinet minister and former Anglican priest, Chris Bryant, declared he had…
Catherine Keller argues ( God and Power ) that apocalyptic vision turned “a local, territorializing Israelite faith” into a global one. Apocalyptic “formed first as a response to the imperial aggression of Babylon, which had traumatically deterritorialized Israel; then the Babylon of Isaianic apocalyptic became code for Rome.” In Christian…
“For three transgressions of Damascus and for four. . . . for three transgressions of Gaza and for four. . . . For three transgressions of Tyre and for four. . . . For three transgressions of Edom and for four.” That is how Amos opens his prophecy: A series…
Biblical scholars commonly criticize other biblical scholars for being inconsistent in their handling of literal and figurative language. If one bit of a text is literal, it is assumed, the whole must be; and vice versa. This demand for consistency is mistaken, and can only lead to absurdities. Take the…
Showing page 330 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
