Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Flying scrolls. Red horses. Beasts coming out of the sea. Winged women. The list goes on. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is like a cross between science fiction and Marvel comics. And the Bible has a fair bit of this sort of thing. Daniel sees visions in Babylon, Zechariah sees…
Trinity House Institute has taken a new name, the Theopolis Institute. This striking new name expresses our unique vision and mission and captures the unified purpose behind all our specific programs and activities. We still have Bible, liturgy, and culture in our tagline. We still offer the same courses on…
Adam Kotsko offers a socio-political variation on the Christus Victor atonement theory in his 2010 study, The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation . He does this by explaining "the devil" in terms of the Hegelian concept of "objective spirit," Geist . As Kotsko puts it, Geist "refers…
Two factors keep Nahtali Meshel from discussing the meaning of sacrifice until late in his The "Grammar" of Sacrifice . The first has to do with the texts he draws from: "P says little about the meaning of its rituals" (174). The other has to do with the grammatical theory…
Chapter 5 of Naphtali Meshel's The "Grammar" of Sacrifice focuses on "praxemics," the physical actions of sacrificial ritual. Praxemes are constituted by six elements: an "atomact," an elementary physical act or gesture; an actor; an object that is acted up; a target for the action and often for the object…
Two chapters of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice cover what he calls “jugation” and “hierarchies.” The first involves the addition of other materials to an animal offering. Jugates include wine, cereal, and oil that are added to the animals (zoemes) that are offered in sacrifice. Some jugates are coordinated…
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Europeans are finally making honest men of themselves. Instead of pretending they are Christian, they are seeking legal means to erase their baptismal records. They can do it through the internet. According to Breitbart.com, “More than 100,000 Britons have recently downloaded ‘certificates of de-baptism’ from the Internet to renounce their…
INTRODUCTION Last week, we saw that for Paul the cross delivers us from all powers, human and angelic and demonic, that rule human life. For Paul, one of those powers is the Law, but the cross delivers us from that too. THE TEXT “For I want you to know what…
A few weeks ago, I posted a summary of Van Drunen’s argument against depictions of Jesus. I wrote: “Christology, he argues, does not support the conclusion that we may make pictures of Jesus, but the opposite. Because Jesus is still the Incarnate Son, because He is still fully human, He…
Colossians 1:15: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. As we’ve seen in this morning’s sermon, Paul uses the word “firstborn” twice in Colossians 1 to designate Jesus as the new Adam, the new Isaac, the new Israel , the new man. He also…
Over the centuries, Christians have invented all sorts of lore about Satan, hell, and the underworld. Most of it is pure fancy. Dante is instructive in many ways; he is not instructive in giving us a map of hell. This may seem harmless speculation, but at a fundamental level it…
Unlike many who write about Paul’s teaching on the “powers,” GB Caird pays attention to Colossians 1:20, where Paul claims that things in heaven - which much include powers and principalities (1:16) are reconciled and pacified by the cross. When they do notice this verse, writers like Walter Wink push…
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