Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
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A student, Luke Nieuwsma, pointed out several references to Ahab in the prophecy of Micah. Micah 2:1-2 condemns those who covet fields and take them by violence, as Ahab did to Naboth; 6:15 is an explicit allusion to Omri and Ahab; and the “she” who is trampled like mud sounds…
INTRODUCTION Modern Christians instinctively spiritualize the story of the gospel. When Jesus is called “King of the Jews,” we think that refers to His “spiritual” kingdom. Herod didn’t think so. Herod knew that Jesus’ birth was a threat to his power. THE TEXT “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem…
Psalm 23:1: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. At Jesus’ birth, shepherds come to worship Him because He is the chief Shepherd. He is Shepherd Yahweh in human flesh. He is the Shepherd of Israel. He is the Davidic king who will shepherd His people with skillful…
As we’ll see in the sermon this morning, in the Bible a “shepherd” is a king. Shepherds lead, guide, rule, control, feed, discipline, and judge their sheep. To say that Jesus is the Good Shepherd is to say He’s king of His people, king of all. Jesus’ kingship is not…
Terry Eagleton puts it this way: “for Lacan all discourse is, in a sense, a slip of the tongue: if the process of language is as slippery as he suggests, we can never mean precisely what we say, or say precisely what we mean. Meaning is always in some sense…
Terry Eagleton puts it this way: “for Lacan all discourse is, in a sense, a slip of the tongue: if the process of language is as slippery as he suggests, we can never mean precisely what we say, or say precisely what we mean. Meaning is always in some sense…
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