Theopolis Logo

Writing

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

See all
screen-shot-2021-06-03-at-8-49-15-am
Ezra

Ezra: The Aaronic Rest-Giver

If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…

by Rhys LavertyJune 8, 2021
christian-lue-k1e6994p3t8-unsplash
1 John

1 John in Community

Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…

by Tim NicholsJune 1, 2021
noahs-ark-genesis
Hermeneutics

Spending Time with Noah: Reflections on Prepositions in the Flood Narrative

In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…

by Josh JensenMay 25, 2021
86758
Philosophy

Steven Weinberg Destroyed My Faith

Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 18, 2021
screen-shot-2020-09-17-at-9-11-45-am
Colossians

Reconciliation in Colossians 1:20

Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 11, 2021
stalker_still
Movies

Terror of Knowing Myself

Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 4, 2021

Showing page 55 of 309

See all

Showing page 35 of 43

See all
Uncategorized

Turn the Cheek

“Let him give his cheek to the smiter, let him be filled with reproach” (Lamentations 3:30). In context, Jeremiah is speaking of afflicted Israel, which he himself embodies as the prophet. “I have hope in Him,” Jeremiah writes (v. 24) and then turns to a meditation on the value of…

January 30, 2014
Uncategorized

Cloud of Anger

Lamentations 3:43-44 are set in parallel: A. You covered yourself with anger and pursued us B. You have slain and not spared A’. You have covered yourself with a cloud B’. So that no prayer can pass through. Both A sections speak of Yahweh hiding Himself behind a veil -…

January 30, 2014
Uncategorized

What’s College For?

College costs keep rising, but Kathleen Parker argues that the more serious problem is that students are no longer getting “much bang for their buck.” Parker sites a study from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni that criticizes colleges for “an increasing lack of academic rigor, grade inflation, high…

January 30, 2014
Uncategorized

University of the Air

Back in 1934, Walter Dill Scott, president of Northwestern, already anticipated distance education : “The university of twenty-five years from now will be a different looking place, says President Scott of Northwestern. Instead of concentrating faculty and students around a campus, they will ‘commute’ by air, and the university will…

January 30, 2014
Uncategorized

Love v. Liberality

In his 1888 treatise on Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (7-9), Gerhard Uhlhorn contrasts pagan liberality with Christian charity. He acknowledges that pagan liberality was considerable, but that did not make it identical to the Christian virtue. “Liberality is the heathen virtue which corresponds to the compassionate love, the…

January 30, 2014
Uncategorized

The End of Protestantism

In a sermon on “Catholic Unity,” delivered in 1844, John Williamson Nevin announced the end of “Protestantism”—of the knee-jerk anti-Catholicism that, he said, did as much damage to the Reformation as the errors it opposed. “It is not enough now,” he declared, “simply to cry out against popery and puseyism,…

January 30, 2014

Showing page 695 of 2212

Browse by Category

In Medias Res

Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.

Donate

Theopolis is nearly 100% donor-supported. Consider joining us on our mission.