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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Matthew

Reading Matthew, Identifying Discourses: A Closer Look at the “Six-Discourse” Proposal

In a February blog post for the Theopolis Institute, Benoît Engel offers a thought-provoking challenge to the widely accepted five-discourse structure of Matthew’s Gospel, proposing a sixth discourse in Matthew 21:28–22:14 to reframe the Gospel’s chiastic center. As someone deeply invested in Matthew’s literary design—explored in my book Reading Matthew,…

by Jonathan SedlakJune 26, 2025
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2 Timothy

Avoid Foolish Disputes

Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9 Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.…

by Grant Van BrimmerJune 24, 2025
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Baptism

The Indispensable Mark of Worship: Infant Baptism

Theopolis publishes many polemics, especially on the Sacraments. This piece does not necessarily reflect the views of Theopolis, her board, or her editors. -JW Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the…

by Tommy ThompsonJune 19, 2025
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American Culture

Ecclesiocentric Life is Back

There is in the United States and the Western World some sort of religious revival occurring. Gen Z men—males born between ca 1997 and 2012—are flooding back in to churches. USA Today noted that Gen Z men—and to a lesser degree women—attending churches more than their millennial predecessors and they…

by Miles SmithJune 17, 2025
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Biblical Studies

Sceptical Text-Critical Hypotheses

The primary task of many Biblical scholars (as they see it) is to explain how and why the Biblical text acquired its final form—i.e., what source material it used, how that material was expanded/redacted, who expanded/redacted it, why they did so, what the weather was like at the time, etc.…

by James BejonJune 12, 2025
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Galatians

Flesh & Spirit in Galatia

Galatians 5:5-15 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from…

by Jeff MeyersJune 10, 2025

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The Living and the Dead

W hen New Haven's New Burying Ground was set up in the 1790s, it marked a revolution in cemetery planning. It was outside of town, neatly organized into family plots and class clusters. Yale President Timothy Dwight thought it unique in the world, and gave a rationale for its design:…

August 5, 2016

Addicted to Autonomy

I n his book on Hands , Darian Leader notes the “paradox at the heart of the modern notions of agency and choice.” We strive for autonomy and self-determination, but this “obligation to be free and to make our own choices is framed within a network of imperatives that come…

August 5, 2016

Marketing Crafts

C ontemporary technologies threaten to suck us into virtual reality, and in response many have turned to real reality, to hand-crafts that link us to this worldly stuff. As Darian Leader ( Hands , 13-13) puts it, “We are encouraged to counter our apparent alienation in the excesses of the…

August 5, 2016
Baptism

Meeting Us Where We Are

I n his book on The Gospel Commission , Michael Horton includes several insightful pages on baptism. “Like circumcision,” he writes, “baptism is represented in the New testament as God's decision and claim on us. Although it obligates us to respond in faith and obedience, baptism is God's sign and…

August 5, 2016

Pro Rege et Patria

F ollowing Henri de Lubac's studies in medieval Eucharistic theology, Ernst Kantorowicz traces the development of a sacralized-secular politics in the later medieval period, as ecclesiological principles were applied to national politics. Lucas de Penna drew a direct line from the church as mystical body to the political body: “The…

August 5, 2016

Stephen Masty, RIP

I don't recall if I ever met Stephen Masty but I had heard his name for many years. My brother and brother-in-law were at school with him at Hillsdale College, but until I read his obituary in the Hillsdale alumni magazine recently I hadn't conceived of what a big life…

August 5, 2016

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