Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
Showing page 1 of 309
Showing page 3 of 43
It seems that Solomon begins his reign with a breach of the law. Deuteronomy 7:3-4 forbids Israel from intermarrying with Gentiles, Canaanites in particular, and the usage in Deuteronomy 7 is very similar to that of 1 Kings 3:1. Solomon ?became son-in-law to Pharaoh,?Eand Deuteronomy 7 forbids the Israelites to…
Again, a wooden, unpolished, but perhaps helpful translation. And Shlomoh became son-in-law to Pharaoh king of Mizrayim. And he took the daughter of Pharaoh And caused her to enter (brought her) to the city of David Until his finishing to build His house And the house of Yahweh And the…
Stephen M. Barr offers a hilarious review of Richard Dawkins’s latest, A Devil’s Chaplain in the August/September issue of First Things . He chides Dawkins for getting his facts wrong and for pervasive, stubborn superficiality. He concludes that there are several Dawkinses, and that his book is a war of…
CP Snow famously lamented the division of Western culture into separate worlds of Science and Humanities, to which Vladimir Nabokov (novelist and lepidopterist) replied: “I would have compared myself to a Colossus of Rhodes bestriding the gulf between the thermodynamics of Snow and the Lawrentonmania of Leavis, had that gulf…
In a brief article in the August 6 TLS , Stephen Brown reflects on the influence of African music on the music of America and Europe. Until WWI, he writes, African music had little impact on the wider musical scene, but after the war “there was no popular music in…
Wisdom To Do Justice, 1 Kings 3:1-28 INTRODUCTION 1 Kings 3 is divided into three sections. The first is a brief notice about Solomon?s marriage to Pharaoh?s daughter, and the continuing practice of sacrifice on high places (vv. 1-3). The second, longer section is about Solomon?s request for wisdom (vv.…
Showing page 2060 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
