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Matthew

Reading Matthew, Identifying Discourses: A Closer Look at the “Six-Discourse” Proposal

In a February blog post for the Theopolis Institute, Benoît Engel offers a thought-provoking challenge to the widely accepted five-discourse structure of Matthew’s Gospel, proposing a sixth discourse in Matthew 21:28–22:14 to reframe the Gospel’s chiastic center. As someone deeply invested in Matthew’s literary design—explored in my book Reading Matthew,…

by Jonathan SedlakJune 26, 2025
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2 Timothy

Avoid Foolish Disputes

Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9 Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.…

by Grant Van BrimmerJune 24, 2025
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Baptism

The Indispensable Mark of Worship: Infant Baptism

Theopolis publishes many polemics, especially on the Sacraments. This piece does not necessarily reflect the views of Theopolis, her board, or her editors. -JW Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the…

by Tommy ThompsonJune 19, 2025
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American Culture

Ecclesiocentric Life is Back

There is in the United States and the Western World some sort of religious revival occurring. Gen Z men—males born between ca 1997 and 2012—are flooding back in to churches. USA Today noted that Gen Z men—and to a lesser degree women—attending churches more than their millennial predecessors and they…

by Miles SmithJune 17, 2025
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Biblical Studies

Sceptical Text-Critical Hypotheses

The primary task of many Biblical scholars (as they see it) is to explain how and why the Biblical text acquired its final form—i.e., what source material it used, how that material was expanded/redacted, who expanded/redacted it, why they did so, what the weather was like at the time, etc.…

by James BejonJune 12, 2025
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Galatians

Flesh & Spirit in Galatia

Galatians 5:5-15 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from…

by Jeff MeyersJune 10, 2025

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Structure in 1 Chronicles 26

1 Chronicles 26:1-19 lists the names and positions of gatekeepers at Solomon's temple. The passage is framed by references to the “allotment” or “apportionment” of assignments to Korahites (v. 1) and sons of Korah and Merari (v. 19). Within this frame, the text moves in a complex parallel fashion through…

February 21, 2017

All Great Art Is Praise

“T he art of man is the expression of his rational and disciplined delight in the forms and laws of the creation of which he forms a part.” This is the first thesis of John Ruskin's “All Great Art Is Praise,” in The Laws of Fesole . Rationality is essential…

February 21, 2017

Demonstrative Complications

I n their 1662 treatise on Logic, or the Art of Thinking , Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole question the straightforwardness of the Calvinist logical analysis concerning the Eucharistic “This is my body.” They summarise the argument this way: “Their claim is that in Jesus Christ’s assertion, ‘This is my…

February 20, 2017

Passivity and Freedom

I ngolf Dalferth thinks we are Creatures of Possibility . By that, he means that “we are creatures in the making whose actual becoming depends on possibilities beyond our control that occur in our lives as opportunities and chances that we can neglect and miss or take up and use”…

February 17, 2017

The State after ‘68

A ccording to Pierre Manent ( Beyond Radical Secularism ), May 1968 marked a critical turning point in the political history ofFrance. Despite the persistence of the “Gaullist” party in political power, ‘68 undermined “collective rules, both political and merely social. The citizen of action was followed by the individual…

February 17, 2017

On Separating Church and State

S eparation of church and state, religion and politics, is not “sufficient unto itself,” argues Pierre Manent ( Beyond Radical Secularism ). After all, he points out, citizens are believers, believers citizens, and they don’t cease to be one when they take up the role of the other. Separation “suggests…

February 17, 2017

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