Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mark Horne has done a good job elucidating how martyrdom paves the way for revival and success of Christ’s kingdom in the world, just as it also can bring more hardship and suffering. The diverging wheat and tares both growing up together, both benefitting from the watering of blood on…
For Part 1, click HERE . Anyone who has read James B. Jordan’s Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World and appreciated it as a revelation of how God communicates in symbols and types—both in His Word and in the created order—understands what it is like to…
Abel was the first martyr in history. There is no evading this. Jesus pairs him with a murdered prophet (Matthew 23:35; 2 Chronicles 24:20-22). Abel’s blood was heard by God (Genesis 4:10), and God responded to the cry by driving out Cain, Abel’s killer, from the eastern borderland near Eden…
Adapted from The Shape of Isaiah: A Covenant-Literary Analysis The prophetic texts are the most difficult parts of the Bible to understand. And when it comes to baffling the reader, they are no respecter of persons, perplexing with their Delphic wiles even the studied scholars. It has been said that…
The subtitle for the 2004 film Dodgeball is “A True Underdog Story.” If the viewer lets the words pass by without a double-take, he or she will likely spend the rest of the movie, which applies the “unlikely teammates make the best teams” trope to the “sport” of dodgeball, asking,…
The book of Ezra gives an almost odd amount of attention to vessels. These holy vessels, whether cups, bowls, or flagons, are either dedicated as tribute or were used in temple service. The two Hebrew words translated as ‘vessel’ in most English translations are used a total of 14 times.…
Showing page 4 of 309
Showing page 37 of 43
One of the key distinctions in Rosenstock-Huessy’s grammatical sociology is that between names and words. In his brief discussion of this distinction in The Christian Future (CF), he begins with an expression of his horror at John Dewey’s notion that “We have to find another set of words to formulate…
After the northern tribes abandon the house of David (2 Chronicles 10), Rehoboam settles in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 11:5). He builds cities for defense and for storage (11:5-12), receives the Levites and priests who flee from idolatrous Israel (11:13-17), marries and has children (11:18-23). The chapter moves from land to…
Underlying Rosenstock-Huessy's entire discussion of the diseases of speech is the assumption that language establishes relations. In this, Rosenstock-Huessy is again assaulting one of the premises of modernity, namely, the centrality of the Ego, and the consequent notion that language exists so that the Ego can express its thoughts and…
My Firstthings.com column last week was about Scottish poet Thomas A. Clark (not to be confused with the American poet Tom Clark). Here are the first few paragraphs: T homas A. Clark is ambitious. In a short essay on “Imaginative Space,” the Scottish poet describes our “late culture,” which is…
Though sometimes conflated, purity and holiness aren't the same thing in the Old Testament. There are two overlapping spectra: A spectrum from profane or common on the one side and holiness/sanctity on the other, and a spectrum with unclean/impure to clean/pure on the other. The difference is evident in the…
Truth has a bad rap these days. A claim to know truth sounds dogmatic, oppressive, perhaps even racist. Truth-claims shut down dialogue: If you already know the truth, there's nothing for us to talk about. In his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate , Benedict XVI took on this hostility to…
Showing page 135 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
