Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a February blog post for the Theopolis Institute, Benoît Engel offers a thought-provoking challenge to the widely accepted five-discourse structure of Matthew’s Gospel, proposing a sixth discourse in Matthew 21:28–22:14 to reframe the Gospel’s chiastic center. As someone deeply invested in Matthew’s literary design—explored in my book Reading Matthew,…
Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9 Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.…
Theopolis publishes many polemics, especially on the Sacraments. This piece does not necessarily reflect the views of Theopolis, her board, or her editors. -JW Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the…
There is in the United States and the Western World some sort of religious revival occurring. Gen Z men—males born between ca 1997 and 2012—are flooding back in to churches. USA Today noted that Gen Z men—and to a lesser degree women—attending churches more than their millennial predecessors and they…
The primary task of many Biblical scholars (as they see it) is to explain how and why the Biblical text acquired its final form—i.e., what source material it used, how that material was expanded/redacted, who expanded/redacted it, why they did so, what the weather was like at the time, etc.…
Galatians 5:5-15 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from…
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Barth quotes one CJ Nitzsch on the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity: ?So long as theism only distinguishes God and the world and never God from God, it is always caught in a relapse or transition to the pantheistic or some other denial of absolute being. There can…
Walsh has this intriguing comment about the man stone to death for blasphemy in Lev 24: “The man is oddly anonymous, although his Israelite mother, his maternal grandfather, and his tribal forefather are all named. This is a more subtle invocation of the law of the talion: the man who…
Jerome Walsh (in Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative ) points out the chiastic structure of Gen 12:6b: Pharaoh gives Abram “flocks-and-herds/jackasses/men servants//women servants/jenny asses/camels.” This arrangement highlights the gift of slaves to Abram, anticipating the “gift” of Hebrew slaves to Moses in the exodus. Abram leaves Egypt not…
Ever since first reading Milbank’s Theology and Society Theory , I’ve been intrigued by the work of JG Hamann. A recent brief article by John R. Betz in Modern Theology (April 2004) raised my interest again. Betz reviews Oswald Bayer’s recent Vernunft ist Sprache: Hamanns Metakritik Kants , and provides…
Iain Provan, Philips Long, and Tremper Longman’s A Biblical History of Israel begins with several excellent chapters on OT historiography, and on historiographical issues in general. Some highlights of the discussion (highlights to me at least): 1) The authors challenge the distinction between primary and secondary sources because it is…
For all those readers out there who read Polish: Several of my articles have been translated and published in the Reformacja w Polsce ( Reformation in Poland ), a quaterly published by Evangelical Reformed Church in Wroclaw, Poland. Bogumil Jarmulak sent me the following links: “Why Sacraments” ( Dlaczego sakramenty…
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