Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After 9 chapters of genealogy, the Chronicler begins his history with the death of Saul and the rise of David. The latter part of 1 Chronicles 12 describes the assembly of warriors from the twelve tribes to Hebron to celebrate David’s coronation as king. They have a three-day feast, with…
In the introduction we saw that Matthew and Luke are the only gospels which include “fire” in John the Baptist's narrative. If Matthew and Luke are the priestly and prophetic gospels, the inclusion of fire is of great importance. Priests are servants of the altar, working with fire every day.…
The feet of the great statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream cannot be interpreted as a prediction of the states of modern Europe, but the lessons from their failure can certainly be applied . The statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream spoke of God’s ordaining of four empires which would rule in succession throughout…
This past Sunday afternoon, I drove just a few miles west of my neighborhood to visit the corner of Sherman Blvd. and Burleigh St. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Amid a crowd I stood, looking at a huge gas station and multiple vehicles, all completely destroyed. Hundreds of feet of yellow caution…
1 Chronicles 12 is a flashback. The Chronicler has told the story of Saul’s death at the battle of Mount Gilboa. He has described how “all Israel” gathered to David at Hebron to make him king over all Israel (11:1-3). At the beginning of chapter 12, we move back to…
A great story draws you into specific details while delivering an ending that keeps you coming back. It brings you into the minutiae of life in such a way that requires patience, only to deliver a breath of fresh air time and again. The climax of the biblical story comes…
Showing page 126 of 309
Showing page 24 of 43
Laurence Michel, exploring the “Possibility of a Christian Tragedy,” suggests that the creation account of Genesis opens the possibility for a “tragic sense of life.” How? “To have a world imitative of the simple perfection of God one must have multiplicity and diversity of goods. Various evils and contraries will…
CS Lewis says in Pilgrim’s Regress : “Evil is fissiparous, and could never in a thousand eternities find any way to arrest its own reproduction. If it could, it could be no longer evil: for Form and Limit belong to the good.” But what then of a Good and Infinite…
In a chapter in Beyond Tragedy , Reinhold Niebuhr considers the relationship between Christianity and tragedy. He denies that Christianity is tragic: “The cross is not tragic but the resolution of tragedy.” In the course of his discussion he makes several intriguing points about the tragic outlook: 1) He highlights…
Simone Weil offered one of the most thorough-going Christian defenses of tragedy, though that defense comes at considerable cost to her orthodoxy. As Katherine Brueck points out in her study of Weil’s theory ( The Redemption of Tragedy ), Weil recognized that what was at stake in a discussion of…
Some more thoughts from Segal’s book: 1) He points out the optimism that gripped Athens in the Periclean period, an optimism about the ability of human LOGOS and NOMOS to stave off the savage potential of man’s PHUSIS. But that was short-lived: The Peloponnesian wars broke out, marked by several…
In his study of Sophocles, Tragedy and Civilization , Charles Segal points to several Greek terms that might be translated as “civilization” and that capture various aspects of civilized life: NOMOS = the established institutions, customs, and norms of a people POLITEIA = the form of government, especially the constitutional…
Showing page 2136 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
