Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When God created Adam, He gave him both a vision and a responsibility. The big vision was the Dominion Mandate. The more specific calling was to cultivate and guard the Garden. God also told Adam about the gold of Havilah, which was good and beautiful (that is how the Hebrew…
After the death of Jan Hus (1369–1415), his successors, the Hussites, began to develop his thoughts on the theology and practice of the Church, particularly on= the question of the lay chalice. This time, however, it was not a question of whether this should be permitted at all—after all, this…
Imagine a friend of yours got involved in a commune, one of the really crunchy ones that does their own farming and such along with poetry nights and music and art. They’re pretty good at all this, actually. They’re using some really interesting permaculture practices at the communal farm, the…
Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the more well-known typologically dissected passages in the Bible. But just for the sake of dotting “i”s, here is a quick rundown: The promised son’s appearing was awaited a very long time (Genesis 12:4; 15:2–3; 16:16; 17:17; 21:1–5;…
A Narrative Sermon on Luke 22:24-46 As Luke walked through the rain toward the corner house he was apprehensive. That surprised him. He knew all along that this was the climax of the process—that he would have to present his work to these men before it could be copied and…
In 2004, an article by Slavoj Žižek appeared in Psychoanalytic Review entitled, ‘What Can Psychoanalysis Tell Us About Cyberspace?’ One of the answers that Žižek offers is that cyberspace creates an environment within which the consumer gets to play in a world where there is no God. In his use…
Showing page 5 of 309
Showing page 35 of 43
Citing Deut 16:9-12 and the Gezer Calendar, K. Lawson Younger says in NIV Application commentary on Ruth, “the time period from the beginning of the barley harvest to the end of the wheat harvest was normally seven weeks, concluding at Pentecost.” Presumably, this was the festival that Boaz was celebrating…
Augustine is sometimes accused of ontologizing the effects of sin. City of God 14.13 seems to support this: “When [Adam] turned toward himself . . . his being became less complete than when he clung to Him Who exists supremely. Thus, to forsake God and to exist in oneself -…
Augustine rebuts Stoic notions of apatheia and eupatheia in Book 14 of the city of God. He says that Christian experience even those emotions that Stoics denounce - distress and pain and desire - and he roots these experiences in the fact that Christians live in the present age “because…
A colleague, Jayson Grieser, pointed me to Paul Cantor’s little book on Hamlet a few months ago, but I have only recently been able to look at it. It’s superb. Cantor argues that the play dramatizes a conflict between the classical heroism revived by the Renaissance and the Christian constraints…
In City of God, 11.16, Augustine observes the reality of marginal utility: “So far as the freedom of judgment is concerned . . . the reason of the thoughtful man is far different from the necessity of one who is in need, or the desire of the pleasure-seeker. For reason…
INTRODUCTION Jesus gives the Twelve authority to heal, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. He does not give them authority to escape persecutors. Persecution is an inevitable part of the mission of the Crucified. THE TEXT “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.…
Showing page 1566 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
