Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
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In their The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature , Richard Emmerson and Ronald Herzman find apocalypse in unexpected places. Like Chaucer. For the medieval mind, any pilgrimage evoked the pilgrimage of the soul toward heaven, and The Canterbury Tales is no different: “For the individual pilgrims, the pilgrimage suggests the…
Someone recently referred me to Delbert L. Wiens’s Stephen’s Sermon and the Structure of Luke-Acts . It looks wonderful. He has a triple thesis: First, that Stephen’s speech is “a politike in the broadest sense, a sociological and political account of the levels and developmental stages of the Kingdom of…
In his wonderful Jesus and the Victory of God , NT Wright compiles all the passages where Jesus warns of an impending catastrophe, within “this generation.” It’s a long list. Someone needs to do the same with the rest of the New Testament. (Andrew Perriman’s The Future of the People…
Matthew doesn’t tell the parable of the Prodigal Son, but he might has well have. He records the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, which has the same structure and point. Some laborers work through the heat of the day, some come at the 11th hour and work only…
Jeremiah tells the exiles that they will be conquered by Yahweh’s “servant” Nebuchadnezzar and will be under Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:8-11). When the time’s up, Yahweh will punish Babylon and recompense them for their deeds (vv. 12-14). In preparation for this eventual judgment, Yahweh hands a cup to…
Nicolai Gogol’s mystical, exotic religious views didn’t quite fit any form of orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy deeply marked him, especially Orthodoxy monasticism. After his first visit to the monastery at Optina, Gogol wrote that he “took a memory away with me that will never fade. Clearly, grace dwells in that place.…
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