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 33 of 43
After they die, the two witnesses are caught up to heaven (Revelation 11:12). As James Jordan points out in his lectures on Revelation , this is not the first time someone is caught up to heaven. Enoch was, so was Elijah. Then Jesus, then the witnesses. Each is a preacher…
Throughout the Christian centuries the primary means God has used to form his people as Christ’s inheritance is their gathering to him in worship where they hear his word, rejoice in his grace, revere his Name, and receive his many gifts. For too long now this sacred meeting of man…
Darrin Belousek ( Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church ) wants to disconnect substitutionary atonement from the principle of retribution, the notion that “doing justice in response to crime requires ‘repaying’ the offender his ‘due’ in punishment for the crime and…
Philip Jenkins argues in Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses that, though “a few passages in the Hadith are venomously anti-Jewish,” none in the Qur’an are. And the anti-Jewish statements in the Qur’an derive, he suggests, from Jewish sources: “Historians have long known that…
With the splashy discovery of the supposed remains of Richard III by archaeologists from the University of Leicester, the old question of Shakespeare’s Richard demands review. Sarah Knight and Mary Ann Lund summarize the contemporary testimonies to Richard’s physical appearance, including Shakespeare’s innovations: “If Shakespeare can be absolved of inventing…
David Cole offers a chilling analysis of the Justice Department white paper on drones. The news reports have highlighted the fact that the document endorses killing US citizens who are deemed by “an informed, high-level official” to be “an imminent threat” against the US, provided the person cannot be captured…
Showing page 800 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
