Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I just finished re-reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday . I have in the past had the temerity to say that I believe it to be the best novel of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I still maintain that it is at least one…
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be…
I was inspired to write this article after reading John Ahern’s The Case for Shorter Hymnals first published on Theopolis Institute’s website on November 16, 2021. Mr. Ahern and I are writing with different audiences and emphases in mind. I am thankful we both share a mutual desire to see…
If you’ve spent any time in the social-media galaxy of Christian cultural commentators, you have almost definitely run across the Latin phrase Imago Dei . It means image of God . Why they usually say it in Latin, I couldn’t tell you. We saw it in the wake of the…
The Gospel of Matthew—indeed, the New Testament—begins with a list of names, and that list of names is introduced by this heading: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why start like this? Why “the son of David” and “the son…
A blade is raised. A child wails. But the brow under the crown is untroubled. Solomon knows that the raising of the sword will reveal the true parent and the identity of the son. But how did he know this? Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac certainly bears some of the…
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Jody Bottum’s lengthy piece on “John Paul the Great” (Weekly Standard, April 18) is characteristically insightful and elegant. A couple of Bottum’s points stand out. He describes John Paul’s “star” quality, emphasizing “an obvious and easily triggered sort of joy : the ability to please and the ability to be…
J.A. Gray has far and away the most perceptive review I’ve seen of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead in the March issue of First Things . Gray attends to the gaps and reticence of the narrator, John Ames, pointing out that Ames never mentions the name of his young son, to whom…
INTRODUCTION Music, including choral music, has been an important element in worship since the time of David. But what is music for? And what is the choir for? The book of Chronicles gives us answers to these questions. THE TEXT ?So they brought the ark of God and set it…
Luc Brisson’s 2004 book, How Philosophers Saved Myths examines how both classical and Christian writers in antiquity employed allegorical interpretation to find meaning in ancient mythology. His opening pages offer a neat summary of the transition from poetry/myth-making to philosophy and history in ancient Greece. Writing, he argues, marks a…
Stephen Barr has a fine review of John Polkinghorne’s recent Science and the Trinity (Yale) in the May issue of First Things . Along the way, he offers some sharp and devastating criticisms of Polkinghorne’s unfortunate acceptance of open theism, which Polkinghorne accepts because, in Barr’s words, it “makes room…
Stephen Barr has a fine review of John Polkinghorne’s recent Science and the Trinity (Yale) in the May issue of First Things . Along the way, he offers some sharp and devastating criticisms of Polkinghorne’s unfortunate acceptance of open theism, which Polkinghorne accepts because, in Barr’s words, it “makes room…
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