Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1 Kings 17, which abruptly introduces Elijah into the history of the northern kingdom, is a carefully constructed literary unit. In its basic structure, it follows a clear exodus-return pattern. Like Jacob and his sons, Elijah was driven out of the land by a famine (vv. 1-4). In exile, Elijah…
Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and they were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is…
In the year 3119, Ahaziah of Judah and Jehoram of Israel were both slain by Jehu as he carried out his God-appointed task of eliminating the seed and house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:13-33). Since the kings of Israel are usually counted as beginning their reign in the same year…
One of the most important developments in Biblical studies in recent years has been a movement of scholars devoted to studying the literary techniques of the Biblical writers. Tremper Longman, III of Westminster Theological Seminary has treated this movement from a Reformed perspective in his Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation…
And because [Paul] was of the same trade, he stayed with [Aquila and Priscilla] and they were working; for by trade they were tentmakers (Acts 18:3). The fact that Paul was by trade a tentmaker has usually been taken as the springboard for a discussion of whether pastors should have…
I pointed out in Chronologies and Kings Part 9 that the years of Judah’s kings are given in chronological fashion. "When we read of a Judahite king’s reign as lasting 4 years, it means that 4 years of the chronology have been given to him, and there is no chronological…
Showing page 290 of 309
Showing page 24 of 43
God created two different kinds of land creatures, which are identified with two different sorts of names in the Old Testament. Wild animals are classified as “living things” ( chayyah ), while domesticated animals are classified as “cattle” ( behemah ). This is a division built into the original creation,…
At the beginning of Revelation 13, the dragon - Satan - goes to the seashore. He places himself in the same position as the Spirit at the beginning of creation, who hovered over the water and called up the land from the sea and the many other things from the…
In a 2009 First Things piece reprinted in It’s Not the End of the World: It’s Just the End of You , David P. Goldman explores how Western tonal music is able to capture higher orders of time and that evoke eternity. Drawing on Augustine’s account of time in terms…
One of the interesting findings of Patrick Fletcher’s Resurrection Realism , a study of Ratzinger’s Augustinian views on the resurrection, has to do with Ratzinger’s changing views of Platonism. Early on, Ratzinger saw Platonism as an enemy of Christian faith. He attempted to construct a “de-Platonized” eschatology that did not…
Francois Furet’s Lies, Passions & Illusions is a best-seller in France. The little book is Furet’s portion of a conversation-debate with Paul Ricouer. Ricouer put aside his edited version of the conversation when Furet died in 1997, but Furet’s portion was completed and is not published. Furet’s analysis of twentieth…
In his Prison Notebooks , the Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci rebuts the abstracted philosophizing of Bertrand Russell: “Russell says approximately this: ‘We cannot, without the existence of man on the earth, think of the existence of London or Edinburgh, but we can think of the existence of two points in…
Showing page 509 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
