Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christmas is a joyful season, but for many it turns into something else. Instead of joy, it is full of disappointment and unhappiness. Instead of an occasion for family fellowship, it becomes an opportunity for opening old wounds, reigniting old arguments, giving new life to rancor that should have died…
The Temple of Time The “covenant-literary matrix” of the Bible is not a pattern imposed upon the text, but the internal logic of its arrangement. This fundamental structure, functioning at multiple levels simultaneously, is a ceaseless reiteration of God’s primary theme. It is an algorithm forged in the furnace of…
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus, Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. [1] That the author of Kings should date the start of the building of the temple from the Exodus is noteworthy. In Exodus 15:17, in Moses’ song following the…
Philip Schaff, a German Reformed theologian, states in The Principle of Protestantism that the material principle of Protestantism is “the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by the merit of Christ alone through faith.” This is the core message of the Church which leads “to the abandonment…
“Religion” is an attempt to create or build a tower with a top, or to build a temple that is self-contained. The story of The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is the story of mankind’s attempt to create a world that is self-contained and does not need God. All…
In the first essay in this series, I presented a case for dating Matthew before AD 70, contrary to the present scholarly consensus. In this essay, I intend to present cultural, personal, ecclesiological, and theological arguments for a very early date for Matthew. [1] The cultural argument concerns literacy in…
Showing page 121 of 309
Showing page 2 of 43
Knowing follows the “dynamic of dance,” writes Esther Lightcap Meek ( A Little Manual for Knowing , 79). The knower and the reality to be known are partners, each one off balance at a particular moment but sustaining “an ongoing, overall balance” (80), engaged in a personal etiquette of overture…
The essays on art collected in Tikkun Olam originated from Gillian Rose’s “broken middle,” writes editor Jason Goroncy. He includes a long quotation from a Rowan Williams essay on Job to explain. Williams writes, “Mere resignation is a betrayal; structuring and explanation is a blasphemy. What is left, then, if…
Jesus’ letter to Pergamum mentions Balaam and Balak (Revelation 2:14), and that is a signal that the whole message is running along the lines of Numbers 22-25. The death of the high priest is a sacrificial moment in the life of Israel. According to the rules of the cities of…
It’s easy for Christians to become frustrated with the state of the world, but frustration is ineffective and perhaps dangerous public stance. Over at Comment , I prescribe an antidote to frustration - a public stance infused with the theological virtues.
In a highly provocative VT article from 2009, Leigh M. Trevaskis points to the emphasis on Sabbath in Leviticus 23 and 25. All but one festival day is either on a date that is a multiple of seven, or on the day just after. The exception is the day of…
Leigh Trevaskis offers an intriguing, helpful discussion of the man stoned for blasphemy in Leviticus 24. Recent commentators have emphasized the “mixed” character of the blasphemer - son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father. While acknowledging the importance of that feature of the story, Trevaskis thinks that the…
Showing page 661 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
