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…
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Matthew 6:17-18: But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your heavenly Father, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Fasting was a duty of Jewish piety, and…
Matthew 3:17: At Jesus’ baptism, a voice from heaven said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. Baptism is an adoption rite. By baptism, Jacob enters the family of God. He is going to gain dozens of older brothers and sisters, lots of parents, a heavenly Father,…
Some sins are obvious. Murder is both a sinful act and arises from a sinful motive. After a murder, there’s a dead body and a murderer with a smoking gun. Murder is obviously and thoroughly evil. And the same is true of adultery, theft, false witness, and a host of…
At the beginning of Book 11 of Apuleius’s Golden Ass , Lucius returns to his human shape by prayer. As David Garland points out, the prayer is a good illustration of the kind of pagan prayers Jesus condemns in the sermon on the mount. In William Adlington’s 1556 translation, it…
Alex the African Grey died on September 6 at the age of 31. According to the obit in the Economist , Irene Pepperberg, a theoretical chemist who worked with Alex, had worked with Alex to the point that he “had the intelligence of a five-year-old child and had not yet…
In his splendid performance history of Shakespeare, David Bevington frequently comments on the “scenic literalism” of film and television. Commenting on a TV production of As You Like It , he laments that the production “tells us where we are in the story by putting entire landscapes or interiors in…
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