Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I've pastored a very rural church for well over a decade. Our town has about 1,000 people and will never grow until Jesus returns. 38 people attend our worship on Sundays. Here's a quick list of what we’ve done to grow our church, and what I’ve done to survive pastorally.…
Thanks for sharing so honestly about your current crisis of creativity. I totally understand and relate to that; it’s happened many times in my musical life thus far, and I’ve begun to accept it as a normal rhythm of the creative process. I actually went through a serious dry spell…
The Broken Stones of Israel At Sinai, the tablets of the Law of Moses were broken and restored. The Old Testament is a history of “new covenants,” including that promised in Jeremiah and fulfilled in Zechariah. Ultimately, the vertical Oath and the horizontal Sanctions met in the death of Jesus…
Woe to the sinful nation. Woe to those who enlarge their estates and build their portfolios. Woe to the drunks. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to the proud who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to Congressmen who pass unjust laws and to…
The interpretation of Romans 7:7-25 is notoriously difficult. Good scholars disagree on many aspects of the passage, but the central interpretative difficulty concerns the identity of the “I.” Is Paul referring to himself? Is Paul referring to himself pre- or post-conversion? Does the “I” refer to Adam? Is the “I”…
You board the Metra train at Arlington Heights station one afternoon, heading to downtown Chicago for some sight-seeing. As the train departs from the station, a man in jeans, a striped t-shirt, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap enters your train car, and begins asking to see each passenger’s…
Showing page 108 of 309
Showing page 34 of 43
While his wife Rachel is dying, Manie Swart promises to give one of the family houses to Salome, the family’s lifelong black maid. Young Amor Swart overhears The Promise and asks about it after her mother’s death. Manie pretends he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Years later, Manie dies…
Gotta love ol’ Tommaso d’Aquino, a.k.a. Thomas Aquinas. The margins of my various copies of his works are full of notes of disagreement and question marks, but still: His toss-off arguments are usually deeper than the sustained arguments of lesser theologians. Here’s a pot pourri from the early part of…
This essay was first published at FirstThings.com in September 2019. Given recent debate about justice, friends, and enemies, it seemed useful to repost it here. A third of the way through the Book of Acts, a man named Saul takes over the narrative. Like Israel’s King Saul, this Saul is…
This essay was first published in The Theopolitan, a weekly newsletter for Theopolis Partners. To become a Partner, you must donate at least $500 per year or $50 per month. Give here . Craig Carter’s Thesis #2 about Trinitarian classical theism ( Contemplating God with the Great Tradition ) is,…
“All things are yours,” Paul says (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). Therefore, writes Thomas Traherne ( Centuries of Meditation ), we should enjoy them as our own possessions: God . . . hath made it infinitely easy to enjoy, by making everything ours, and us able so easily to prize them. Everything…
This essay was first published in The Theopolitan, a weekly newsletter for Theopolis Partners. To become a Partner, you must donate at least $500 per year or $50 per month. Give here . It’s a truism that each negative commandment in Scripture implies a positive command. “Do not kill” entails…
Showing page 9 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
