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Theopolis News

2015 Biblical Horizons Conference

This year’s Biblical Horizons conference was another great success and we would like to thank all those who were involved by helping out with the catering or opening up their homes to attendees and speakers. The talks, open-ended as they were, offered a fresh perspective and food for thought on…

by Abi KayJuly 30, 2015
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Children

Training Tools

I find myself often rehearsing conversations with my children. When the house is quiet in the late evening, and I'm standing in front of a pile of soapy dishes, I think about what I am going to say to them in certain situations. When I am driving in the car,…

by Lindsey TollefsonJuly 30, 2015
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Biblical Studies

Cosmic Language, (Part 1)

In Matthew 24:29 , Jesus employs “cosmic language,” signs in the sun, moon and stars, to predict the imminent end of the Old Covenant. His first-century audience would have recognized His allusion to the prophecy against Babylon in Isaiah 13 and understood His discourse as a condemnation of Jerusalem as…

by Mike BullJuly 28, 2015
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Revelation

Triune God of Israel

The Enthroned One speaks to John (Revelation 21:6): “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.” It's a little theology proper. For starters, there's the Greek version of…

by Peter LeithartJuly 23, 2015
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Homosexuality

Stealing a Page from Our Playbook

In reading about how we got into this mess, I came across a very interesting couple of paragraphs that I think the church could learn from if we are going to counter the Obergefell ruling. Prior to 2009, same sex “marriage” had gone to the ballot box thirty-one times in…

by Rich LuskJuly 21, 2015
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Literature

From Garden to Gate of Hell

In my previous essay on Macbeth , I pointed out that Shakespeare rewrote Scottish history to construct a play which points to Adam’s Fall — a man and a woman tempted by devils to steal the throne and become like gods. It is hard to imagine anyone in Shakespeare’s day…

by Ralph Allan SmithJuly 16, 2015

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Lost World

The fifth commandment – Honor your father and your mother – is a counter-cultural demand. Many in our time live according to the 1960s maxim, Question authority. It’s apparently an authoritative command, and it applies in the family as well as everywhere else. But the counter-cultural character of this commandment…

August 7, 2018

Consecrating the Sabbath

English translations typically say that Israel remembers the Sabbath to “ keep it holy.” That implies that the day is already holy, and that Israel maintains its holiness by ceasing. That is true; Israel’s consecration of the day depends on Yahweh’s prior consecration of the day (v. 11). In some…

August 6, 2018

Memorialize the Sabbath

The Fourth Word begins with: “Memorialize the day of ceasing to sanctify it.” I’m using the verb “memorialize” or “commemorate” rather than “remember.” It’s not a command to “call to mind.” Of course, Israel isn’t to forget. But it wouldn’t be enough for Israel to call the Sabbath to mind…

August 2, 2018

Scroll and Trumpets

Reading Revelation 6-7, we might unthinkingly assume that four horsemen, the martyrs, the sealing of the 144,000 are things contained in the book. That can’t be true. This is a scroll, and you can’t read the contents of a sealed scroll until all of the seals have been opened. The…

August 1, 2018

Serving the Ground

The Lord curses Cain in Genesis 4:12: "When you serve ( avad ) the ground ( adamah ), it will not give ( natan ) its strength ( koach ) to you." Invert that, and we have a fair summary of God's blessing, and a mini theology of the natural…

July 31, 2018

Sons of Noah

In his 1876 letter in Fors Clavigera , Ruskin muses on the import of the sons of Ham. Mizraim, Phut, and Sion represent three African powers and three natural environments, the watered plain, the desert, and the sea. Each also represents a certain stage of human development: "A. Egypt is…

July 30, 2018

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