Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“We have a God who hides things because He loves to be sought out, chewed out and found out.” As Christians, we are rightly taught that we must not question God’s Word. The problem is that the Scriptures record many things which appear to have been given to us for…
The book of Revelation is a liturgy. John begins “in the Spirit” on the “Lord’s day” (1:10). Jesus appears, and Jesus tells him to record messages to seven churches, words of encouragement and rebuke, like the call to worship and confession at the beginning of a Christian liturgy. In chapter…
In my previous posts, I looked at the theme of creation as it is found in a sequence of psalms devoted to Yahweh’s Kingship (Psalms 93-100). Among other matters, these psalms declare that when the Kingdom of Israel’s God comes, it is the Kingdom of the world’s own Creator .…
The church in Corinth was a pastoral nightmare. Factionalism, sexual immorality, incipient syncretism, using the church as a stage for self-promotion, and denial of the final resurrection were just some of the problems. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he confronts each of these problems directly and in…
The first chapters of the Word of God have a poetic rhythm. This is used to discredit their accuracy as historical narrative, but the truth is that these same rhythms continue far beyond the book of Genesis. In fact, the later texts shed light on the frustratingly succinct account of…
Mr. Martian: What’s that there? Mr. Edison: (Edison holds up a standard, 60 watt lightbulb). It’s a lightbulb. Mr. Martian: A “lightbulb” you say? What exactly is a “lightbulb”? Mr. Edison: A lightbulb is an object used to illuminate a dark area, say a room. It’s made primarily of filament…
Showing page 154 of 309
Showing page 39 of 43
For reasons that I’ll detail in a subsequent post, I’m a considerable fan of Nicholas of Cusa. I was unhappy to come across this from William Cavanaugh: “The origin of the modern concept of religion can be seen clearly in the thought of two fifteenth-century Christian Platonist thinkers, Nicholas of…
Michael Budde writes, “Like the Rolling Stones and other major concert acts, the Catholic Church has now taken on corporate sponsorship to underwrite the world tours of its major performer, Pope John Paul II. To finance his 1998 visit to Mexico city, the Archdiocese of Mexico City entered into sponsorship…
The story of 2 Kings 1 is undoubtedly meant humorously. Ahaziah falls ill and sends messengers off to consult with Baal-zebub, baal of the flies. On the way, his messengers meet a “baal of hair,” Elijah - right title, wrong god. Yahweh will not allow Ahaziah’s men ever to get…
Here are some highlights of Marjorie Garber?s essay on Richard III in Shakespeare After All . 1) Garber suggests that Richard is the ?first fully realized and psychologically conceived character?Ein Shakespeare?s plays. Richard?s character is fully realize because he is complex, protean, chameleon and Machiavellian (cf. 3 Henry VI 3.2.191-193).…
A further note from Haight: One of the criticisms he lodges against Aquinas and scholasticism is that it tended to treat grace and conversion in a mechanistic fashion: “This is a fundamental distortion of the dynamics of grace when it is seen contrasted with a personalist description, and it has…
Underlying different doctrines of justification, and inseparable from them, are different notions of grace. The historical issues have been ably summarized by Roger Haight in his 1979 book, The Experience and Language of Grace. Haight points out that doctrines of grace have differed partly because the reality of grace is…
Showing page 1979 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
