Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Maybe you have heard it said that you will be content when you learn to empty yourself of all your desire. If you want nothing, you will always be happy with what you have. Maybe this seemed like an extremely godly point of view, and you felt guilty that you…
I write to mark a milestone and to commend to you an old book: my first philosophy book, Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (Brazos, 2003), has reached its twentieth anniversary. Although two decades have passed, the book continues to be relevant to our affairs in…
Consider what we mean today when we talk about “discipling” someone. In a typical evangelical setting, that’s going to mean you grab a cup of coffee for an hour once a week. You’ll talk about life, share some wisdom, pray for each other. There may be Bible reading and Scripture…
Theopolitan Bible Memorization BINDING THE WORD TO YOUR HEART Memorization has been an important tool for humanity since the beginning. In an age where smart phones are ubiquitous, memorization appears outdated. Why memorize anything that could be looked up on a phone in seconds? This new technology leaves many unable…
2022-2023 Prize The Theopolis Institute is pleased to announce the third round of the James B. Jordan Prize to honor outstanding doctoral dissertations in biblical theology. James Jordan is one of the most insightful biblical scholars of our time. The Jordan Prize exists to encourage more of the deep Scriptural…
“Gender is a social construct,” the transgender apologists tell us, thinking with that single stroke they’ve negated gender roles; that they’ve relegated them to the optional, like what kind of cuisine you prefer. Sure, you may be born Italian but that doesn’t mean you’re now bound, by the expectations of…
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A web summary of Lacan’s negative account of desire says, “In constructing our fantasy-version of reality, we establish coordinates for our desire; we situate both ourselves and our object of desire, as well as the relation between. As Slavoj Zizek puts it, ’ through fantasy, we learn how to desire’…
“I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me,” says the bride in the Song of Songs (7:10). “Desire” is the same word used in Genesis 3:16 and 4:7, both of which describe a desire for authority, domination, rule, a threatening desire.  The bridegroom of the Song reverses the…
We’re all deists.  The design of the universe shows that a Great Intelligent Something is responsible for it. No, says Athanasius.  The design of the universe is the impress of eternal wisdom on the creation.  The cunning of creation doesn’t manifest “God,” but eternal creative Wisdom, the eternal Word, whose…
Thomas writes that “to signify something by words or merely by the construction of images . . . yields nothing but the literal sense” and “poetic images refer to something other than themselves only so as to signify them; and so a signification of that sort goes no way beyond…
Denys Turner notes that the Song of Songs presented challenges to the “minority” of medieval theologians who argued for a more rigorous grounding of spiritual in literal senses.  For these, the text speaks literally, referring to specific events; and these events, as Thomas says, providentially typify future events. To qualify…
The distinction of image and likeness has been a common one in the history of theology, East and West, and in the West at least it overlaps with the nature/grace dualism.  Image for Bonventure “denotes a kind of ‘shape,’ that is, a quantitative feature of quality or a qualitative feature…
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