Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Can it be that it has been two whole years since I contributed a Theopolis Post! I had been pursuing the topic of integration: “Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World.” I had defined “integration,” simply, as creative putting together. I had posed that seeking it calls for a fundamentally integrative…
What is known as the miracle of the “Feeding of the Five Thousand” occurs in Mark’s Gospel in chapter 6. As with other gospel writers, Mark has a few different points to make as he moves through this story (included in all four gospel accounts) and its surrounding material. Three…
To begin with the source of this narrative: Since no human being was present to observe these events, we must assume that this narrative was revealed directly by God to a human author. There are three ways this might have happened. First, we might read, "God said to Abraham (or…
The serious Bible student cannot help but be struck by the deviousness of Jacob in Genesis 27. If one already expected some underhanded dealings from this twin-born-second whose name means “supplanter” and whose bargaining with his brother for the birthright in Genesis 25 seemed incredibly weighted in his own favor,…
From Barna stats to mainstream headlines, it seems as though the discordant nature of this last year has taken such a toll on churches in the United States that, for many, the injuries have been fatal. It has become a regular occurrence to hear about a congregation that continues to…
In The Bad News Bears (1976), a city councilman hires a washed-up minor league baseball player with a drinking problem to coach a little league team of leftover misfits. Underdog sports movies are usually full of sentimentalism and dramatic victories, but this film is a commentary on the failing dream…
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What do we do when we disagree about what the Scriptures say? Augustine's answer to that question has rarely been put into practice. This from The Literal Meaning of Genesis : “And when we read in the divine books such a vast array of true meanings, which can be extracted…
Jon Baskin's piece on David Foster Wallace is the best thing I've come across on Wallace. He starts with the arresting claim that in time “it will be recognized that Wallace had less in common with Eggers and Franzen than he did with Dostoevsky and Joyce.” His fiction is a…
H ezekiah “completes” a Passover (2 Chronicles 31:1a), then starts breaking things. He continues until the destruction is also “complete” (2 Chronicles 31:1b; Heb. kalah ). He breaks pillars, cuts down Asherim, and pulls down high places and altars. Hezekiah's purge is described in a single complex verse, 2 Chronicles…
A “Kantian chapter on emotion and responsibility,” write John Sabini and Maury Silver ( Emotion, Character, and Responsibility ), ...is easy to write and quick to read: the domain of the moral is the domain of the will expressed in action; it is the domain of that for which we…
S ince at least Max Weber, historians and sociologists have assumed that the Reformation contributed to what Weber called the “disenchantment” of the world. The thesis has inspired rich historical, sociological, and philosophical studies, from Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic to Charles Taylor's A Secular Age .…
T he Chronicler's account of Hezekiah's Passover (2 Chronicles 30:1–12) is arranged in a neat chiasm: A. Hezekiah sent letters of invitation to Israel to join in Passover, vv. 1–4 B. Couriers take decree throughout the land, vv. 5–6a C. Content of the invitation/decree, vv. 6b–9 B'. Couriers pass through…
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