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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Books

Interpreting "The Man Who Was Thursday"

I just finished re-reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday . I have in the past had the temerity to say that I believe it to be the best novel of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I still maintain that it is at least one…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 7, 2022
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Hebrews

The Universality of Mary’s Wound

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be…

by Garrett SoucyJanuary 4, 2022
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Music

An Argument for Heartier Hymnals

I was inspired to write this article after reading John Ahern’s The Case for Shorter Hymnals first published on Theopolis Institute’s website on November 16, 2021. Mr. Ahern and I are writing with different audiences and emphases in mind. I am thankful we both share a mutual desire to see…

by Jarrod RicheyDecember 30, 2021
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Biblical Studies

Image of God

If you’ve spent any time in the social-media galaxy of Christian cultural commentators, you have almost definitely run across the Latin phrase Imago Dei . It means image of God . Why they usually say it in Latin, I couldn’t tell you. We saw it in the wake of the…

by Daniel HoffmanDecember 28, 2021
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Advent

He Comes to Make His Blessings Known: "Son of David" and "Son of Abraham" in Matthew 1:1

The Gospel of Matthew—indeed, the New Testament—begins with a list of names, and that list of names is introduced by this heading: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why start like this? Why “the son of David” and “the son…

by Josh JensenDecember 23, 2021
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Biblical Studies

On Not Needing to Cut the Baby in Half

A blade is raised. A child wails. But the brow under the crown is untroubled. Solomon knows that the raising of the sword will reveal the true parent and the identity of the son. But how did he know this? Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac certainly bears some of the…

by Jonathan WhiteDecember 21, 2021

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Can Civil Society Fix Us?

“Civil society” typically refers to private and voluntary institutions distinct from both the bureaucracies of the nation-state and the economic institutions of the market. It includes “mediating institutions” like the family, the Moose Lodge, charities, churches, unions, the Chamber of Commerce, educational institutions, United Way, neighborhoods, softball teams, professional associations,…

October 14, 2015

Dostoevsky's Theology

Pulling together the important “content” of Rowan Williams’s profound, masterful 2008 study of Dostoevsky inevitably distorts, since much of the book consists of sensitive readings of Dostoevskian texts. Williams begins with a text, analyzing a confession from an 1854 letter: “if someone were to prove to me that Christ was…

October 14, 2015
Liturgy

What We Get From Worship

It is often said that we come to worship to give and not to receive. That is a dangerous half-truth. Praise, thanks, adoration are all part of worship, of course, and God delights in our praise. But in worship as in all of life, we have nothing to give unless…

October 14, 2015

Isianic Passover

The consensus of modern critical scholarship is that the book assigned to Isaiah was in fact composed by several different hands. “Deutero-Isaiah” supposedly begins with Isaiah 40:1. There are many good reasons for rejecting this conclusion. Among these, the narrative pattern of chapters 36-39 is a neglected piece of evidence.…

October 13, 2015

Baptismal Imagery in James

James hooks the different sections of his epistle together by using the same or a similar word at the close of one section and the opening of the following section. James 1:1 ends with the word “greetings” (Greek, chairein ), and his first exhortation is to “consider it all joy…

October 13, 2015

Hope Springs Eternal

In the introduction to What Hath God Wrought , his contribution to the Oxford History of the United States, Daniel Walker Howe quotes an 1850 Methodist women’s magazine’s ecstasies over the telegraph: “This noble invention is to be the means of extending civilization, republicanism, and Christianity over the earth. It…

October 13, 2015

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