Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
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In a recent article, Rikki Watts challenges the notion that Jesus’ “My God, my God” is a cry of despair, suggesting that it is instead an act of power: “given the . . . its immediate impact on the temple, that it too expresses Jesus’ power. Citing John’s use of…
Tertullian again, denying that the church is a “faction”: “But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our congregations just what we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what we areindividuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody. When the upright, when…
Cambridge physicist David JC Mackay ( Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air , online at www.withouthotair.com) offers a sobering analysis of the practicality of wind power as an alternative energy source for the UK: “Let’s compare this estimate of British wind potential with current installed wind power worldwide. The windmills…
From the Apology (39): “We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle…
Surprisingly, Jesus begins His litany of woe (Matthew 23) by commending the teaching of Jewish scribes and Pharisees. They sit in the seat of Moses, and Jesus’ disciples are to “do and observe” what they say. They may sit in Moses’ seat, but they are not Mosaic in their conduct.…
Did God create from nothing? Yes and No. Yes, the formless-and-void “earth” was made from nothing (Genesis 1:1-2). After that, the creation account is an account of Yahweh working with the stuff, sometimes telling the stuff (soil and water) to produce new things and new configurations of existing things. Adam…
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