Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This essay is adapted from my articles in Theopolis’s In Medias Res as a series of Holy Week meditations. Like many celebrities such as Kanye or Beyoncé or Adele, Josquin des Prez (d. 1521) was often known only by his first name, in his own time as now. “Josquin” is…
Sight is a major theme in the scriptures. The church has long identified sight’s relationship to the future fulfillment of the eschaton. As Paul says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor 13.12). Sight is associated with…
What is the chief end of man? —yes, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But how ought man–and all creation–so glorify him? I propose a Theopolitan addition to the catechism, question and answer number 1.5, begun in the last question and answered as follows: Earth’s inhabitants were created to…
Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words. Genesis 49:21 Frederick Buechner once said, “We move into the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” In poetry, this happens by way of a compressed code of analogs; often, two or more very ordinary things begin to reveal something that…
The evangelical milieu of America has often lost a vision of the fruit of repentance. We tend to simplify repentance by asking for forgiveness. After all, Jesus tells Peter to forgive 70 times 7. This verse must be paired with Paul’s scoffing at the question: why not sin more so…
I. The hemorrhaging woman. En route to Jairus’ house, Jesus is touched by a woman with a hemorrhage of blood (Matt 9:18–26; Mk 5:21–34; Lk 8:40–48). The story is one that many of us know very well. She has been yoked to her illness for twelve years, all of her…
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Exodus 21:26-27 requires a slave-owner to release a slave if he destroys his or her eye or tooth. Shalom Paul ( Studies in the Book of the Covenant , 78) claims that this is unprecedented in ancient law codes. He admits that "a slave is not considered the peer of…
The Hebrew word for "east" is mizrach . The Hebrew word for "altar" is mizbeach . A pun? Perhaps. The bronze altars in the tabernacle and temple were in the court to the east of the front doorway (the eastern) doorway of the sanctuary. The mizbeach was on the mizrach…
In Ezekiel 47, the prophet is shown a vision of a rebuilt temple. A river flows from the throne of Yahweh, under the threshold on the east of the house, and out to the land. As it flows, is makes the land fruitful, and when it reaches the Dead Sea…
For several decades, James Wood has bestridden the world of literary criticism like a Colossus. But Thomas Meaney suggests that there is something amiss in Wood-World. Meaney argues that "What distinguished Wood from most of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors was his focus on matters of aesthetic liberty over social…
A recurring theme of medieval treatments of beauty, writes Umberto Eco (Art and Beauty in the Midlde Ages), is "the beauty of being in general. It was a period in whose history darkness and contradiction may be found, but its philosophers and theologians had an image of the universe that…
Proverbs 5:15-23 follows the warnings of 5:1-14 concerning the seductive adulterous woman. The adulterous woman tempts by promising pleasure and, even more importantly, through flattery (vv. 2-3). The adulterous woman is attractive because she makes a young man feel oh so good about himself. Solomon goes on, however, to point…
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