Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This was a newspaper column that I wrote for the Minco Millennium back in January of 2000 when I had first moved to Minco, Oklahoma to pastor First Reformed Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t able to catch the recent performance of the musical, Godspell , in Oklahoma City. However, my dad…
Awhile back, there was a big debate among Evangelicals as to whether one had to trust Jesus “as Lord” as well as “as savior. Some claimed that one could be saved by Jesus through a faith that did not involve submission to him as Lord. Others claimed that one must…
I originally wrote this a few weeks ago in April 2002 as a column in the local newspaper, The Minco Millennium under the title “Faith & Follow-Through.” Several passages in the book of Hebrews are difficult for Protestants to swallow. The author affirms the once-and-for-all work of Christ and yet…
N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans is destined to be a classic. The introduction alone is worth the hefty price of the book — but the exegesis itself is, well, priceless. I will not attempt a full review — these are just miscellaneous thoughts and random reflections — but I…
At an inn in the town of Lystra three men sat around a corner table. All three were well-known disciples of Joshua Messiah, members of what the town called a new cult, the Way. The short gray-haired man with the enormous beard was clearly restless. “This is taking too long,”…
Recently there has been some surprising debate in some circles over where Paul summarizes his Gospel. I say “surprising” because many Evangelical Bible scholars have held, for quite some time, that Paul’s Gospel is encapsulated in Romans chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Here is the passage in context: Paul,…
Showing page 228 of 309
Showing page 37 of 43
Robert Wilken ( The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought ) has written that “Eusebius directed attention, for the first time in Christian history, to the religious and theological significance of space.” In describing the church of the Resurrection, he uses “a sacral vocabulary that has few…
In a 1959 article “Christian Envy of the Temple,” H. Nibley points out that the early Christians derived their liturgical theology from the temple: “They boast that the Church possesses all the physical properties of the Temple-the oil, the myrrh, the altar, the incense, hymns, priestly robes, etc., everything, in…
Truth-telling has come to be seen as mean-spirited, bigoted, nasty. Truth-telling is hateful, we have come to believe. Soothing lies are often preferred. Solomon sees things different. “A lying tongue hates those it crushes” (Proverbs 26:27). That carries two implications, each of which has a converse. First, it indicates that…
PROVERBS 26:22 Language is a constant theme of the Proverbs. Wisdom is skill, and one of the central skills a wise person must learn is skill in speech. This skill has not only to do with speaking the truth, but even more with questions of tone and timing. Wisdom is…
Angeliki E. Laiou has another revealing article in the Wealth and Poverty volume cited earlier. She notes the regular warnings and even condemnations of commerce in the patristic literature, and goes on to examine medieval and Byzantine hagiography for the same themes. She is surprised to find a fairly positive…
An article by A. Edward Siecienski (in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society (Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History) ) raises the question of the balance between liturgical splendor and poverty relief in the early church. He points out that even John Chrysostom, who thundered so…
Showing page 1373 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
