Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
Showing page 3 of 309
Showing page 27 of 43
Sacred Systems by Eric Kyle is tough going. He covers “systems” of personal transformation and spiritual formation from Philo through the Didache, Bonaventure, Erasmus and de Sales and William Law, to Dallas Willard. Kyle is interested in the “system” that each advocates - their theology and cosmology, their theory of…
Death, not sin, is the great problem for Israel’s patriarchs. There is remarkable little talk of “sin” in Genesis. Sin waits for Cain (4:7), the sin of Sodom rises up before the Lord (18:20), Abimelech sins against Abrhaham (20:6, 9), Joseph refuses to commit the sin of adultery with Potipher’s…
Each of the seven messages to the churches ends with a promised gift to the victors, those who overcome. These are (the numbers refer to the number of the letter): 1. Eating from the wood of life in Paradise. 2a. A crown of life. 2b. Rescue from the second death.…
When Israel tried to reserve some manna and keep it overnight, it rotted and sprouted worms. Except on the Sabbath: On the eve of the Sabbath, they “rested” ( nuach ) the baked manna until morning and it was not rotted (Exodus 16:23-24). The manna rested as Yahweh rested (…
Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett , edited by James and Elizabeth Knowlson is a compilation of reminiscences by and about Samuel Beckett. The collection covers his entire life, from childhood through years of obscurity, to his later triumphs. It includes recollections from friends, collaborators, students, actors and actresses who performed his plays…
In a 2010 piece in Theology Today , Leslie Goode summarizes some of the challenges posed to post-Girardian Christian apologetics and anthropology by Kathryn McClymond’s Beyond Sacred Violence . McClymond argues that violence is not a universal feature of sacrifice, and even where it is present it is not necessarily…
Showing page 676 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
