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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Orestes Brownson has some sharp insights on the purposes and effects of social contract theory as developed by early modern theorists. He recognizes that Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau have detached social contract ideas from their original mooring in Christian thought and “abused the phrase borrowed from the theologians and made…
Poetry is a concentrated excess of language. Concentrated because it always means more than it says. Excessive because it always says more than it needs to say, because in many cases it need not be said at all. Concentration: “The Lord is my shepherd” unlatches a window on an alternative…
Thinking about Plato’s Crito, it again strikes me that NOMOS is closer to what our “culture” than to “law.” If Paul is entering into a Greek debate about NOMOS (as well, of course, as a Jewish one), then he’s critiquing the notion that justice can be achieved through the institutions…
CONTEXT AND STRUCTURE Proverbs 8 follows Proverbs 7. In chapter 7, Solomon records the speech of Lady Folly, the adulteress, who entices the simple to her house for a night of love-making. In chapter 8, Solomon records the speech of Lady Wisdom, who offers herself as the means to rule,…
Last week, The New Republic posted a lengthy article by Jerry Coyne on Intelligent Design (ID) on its web site, along with a brief piece by Leon Wieseltier. Yesterday, the local paper carried a brief excerpt from the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch, claiming that ID should be recognized as veiled philosophy…
INTRODUCTION According to Ephesians, the gospel is about God’s formation of a new humanity. This is true in two senses: First, in Jesus, the Last Adam, believers are made new Adams and Eves; and, second, in Jesus the divided human race is united into a new family, the temple of…
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