Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This essay is adapted from my articles in Theopolis’s In Medias Res as a series of Holy Week meditations. Like many celebrities such as Kanye or Beyoncé or Adele, Josquin des Prez (d. 1521) was often known only by his first name, in his own time as now. “Josquin” is…
Sight is a major theme in the scriptures. The church has long identified sight’s relationship to the future fulfillment of the eschaton. As Paul says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor 13.12). Sight is associated with…
What is the chief end of man? —yes, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But how ought man–and all creation–so glorify him? I propose a Theopolitan addition to the catechism, question and answer number 1.5, begun in the last question and answered as follows: Earth’s inhabitants were created to…
Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words. Genesis 49:21 Frederick Buechner once said, “We move into the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” In poetry, this happens by way of a compressed code of analogs; often, two or more very ordinary things begin to reveal something that…
The evangelical milieu of America has often lost a vision of the fruit of repentance. We tend to simplify repentance by asking for forgiveness. After all, Jesus tells Peter to forgive 70 times 7. This verse must be paired with Paul’s scoffing at the question: why not sin more so…
I. The hemorrhaging woman. En route to Jairus’ house, Jesus is touched by a woman with a hemorrhage of blood (Matt 9:18–26; Mk 5:21–34; Lk 8:40–48). The story is one that many of us know very well. She has been yoked to her illness for twelve years, all of her…
Showing page 7 of 309
Showing page 31 of 43
Wright ( How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels ) claims that “the creeds were remarkable, a unique postbiblical innovation to meet a fresh need. They have functioned as the badge and symbol of the Christian family . . . for a millennium and a half. They…
In his recent How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels , N.T. Wright argues that many forms of atonement theology detach the cross from its proper context in the gospels - that is, the context of God’s coming kingdom. He finds that many “devour works” that deal…
The first of Pastor Ralph Smith’s multi-part series of studies on Deuteronomy is up on the Trinity House site. Ralph is the Pastor of the Mitaka Evangelical Church of Tokyo.
INTRODUCTION Zion has called on Yahweh to awake (Isaiah 51:9), and Yahweh has responded by rousing Jerusalem from her sleep (51:17). Now, Yahweh rouses Zion to wake up to get ready for release and a wedding (52:1). THE TEXT “Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your…
Romantic comedies and dramas have long been Hollywood staples, but Jeanine Basinger’s I Do and I Don’t reviews the alternative tradition of films about marriage. As Judith Newman says in her NYT review , the trick to making marriage dramatic is to create problems for the married couple. Newman writes:…
In his TLS review of Noel Malcolm’s three-volume edition of Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan , David Runciman summarizes the origins of Leviathan. Hobbes wrote the book in France, watching the civil war unfold, sometimes serving as tutor to the future Charles II. As he finished writing in 1650, he had concluded…
Showing page 779 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
