Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This is the third of a three part symposium commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr. James B. Jordan’s publication of Judges: a Practical and Theological Commentary . Judges was the first book length exposition of Theopolitan Reading, a practice of reading Scripture in its fullness that Theopolis continues to refine…
This is the second of a three part symposium commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr. James B. Jordan’s publication of Judges: a Practical and Theological Commentary . Judges was the first book length exposition of Theopolitan Reading, a practice of reading Scripture in its fullness that Theopolis continues to refine…
This is the first of a three part symposium commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr. James B. Jordan’s publication of Judges: a Practical and Theological Commentary . Judges was the first book length exposition of Theopolitan Reading, a practice of reading Scripture in its fullness that Theopolis continues to refine…
From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew: the only way out of this is death. Either this life inside me disappears without my consent, or I lay my own life down to line the road for another. Like palm leaves at the city entrance, allowing the…
After the Jerusalem Council (AD 48/49), which endorsed Paul’s teaching of the Gospel and established a universal theology among Christian churches, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch and taught for some time (Acts 15:30–35). Then, it occurred to Paul to go on a second missionary trip to visit the churches…
This essay first appeared at SolomonSays.net and has been lightly edited for publishing purposes. Before I go any further on what the Bible tells us about the future history of the mortal human race , I must address the end of that history: the final resurrection. When Paul was arrested…
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Thomas thinks that grateful repayment of favors should match the sentiment of the giver rather than the deed or thing give. One of the objections is we can’t know what a benefactor is thinking: “We cannot base our actions on the unknown. God alone knows the heart of man. The…
Thomas relies heavily on Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca in his discussion of gratitude, but at one crucial point he introduces a distinctively Christian theme. Must we thank everyone who does us a beneficium ? Thomas answers with 1 Thessalonians 5:18: In all things give thanks. Ultimately, since God is cause…
One of the things often missed in critiques of scholasticism is its practical thrust. Questions angels and pinheads don’t capture the real genius of the best of scholasticism. In the hands of a master like Thomas, scholasticism is a mode of pastoral theology. A few illustrations from Thomas’s discussion of…
Robert Wilken closes a superb chapter on early Christian art in his recent The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity with a comment on the epochal significance of art in Christian history (pp. 53-4): “‘A cultural event of some importance was taking place,’ wrote the art historian Paul…
The editor of volume of the Summa on the virtues offers this superb and even lovely summary of the centrality of justice in Thomas’s conception of community. God is the source of all communal goods, since “each individual participates because physical, moral, spiritual, cultural values are derived from the causality…
Every time I read it, I’m impressed again with Edmund Bertram’s spirited description of the public role of pastors in Mansfield Park . He begins his speech in response to Mary Crawford’s dismissive “a clergyman is nothing.” Edmund replies: “A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must…
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