Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the beginning, this was home. The world, I mean. Creation wasn’t just a series of unconnected events, a flashy display of building prowess. Yes, creation was intended to give God glory—which I guess you could say means that the creation was supposed to show the greatness—the weight —of God.…
We think we know. God is a stern Rule-Maker who has a bit of an anger management problem. Or, God is the indulgent Daddy in the sky. Or, God used to be a stern Ruler, but he got nice. Christians don't believe any of that. Christians say the one God…
Unfortunately today, baptism seems so… tiny . It’s actually… cute (maybe sweet?) when it’s given to a child. A little baby, a small gathering of people, a little bowl of water, tiny drops sprinkled upon the little baby’s head followed by a small applause and a short prayer. How… small!…
Early on in the history of the church, Christians understood that the 1st century Jewish practice of meeting for prayer at set times of the day was a good and biblical practice to continue. We find references to this in several places in Scripture. In Acts 3 we find Peter…
Editors’ note: For those interested in a review of Richard Hays’s latest book, see here . Richard Hays is a renowned New Testament scholar. The professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School originally studied English literature, giving his reading of Scripture a pronounced literary sensibility. He’s perhaps best known…
As many commentators point out, Genesis is structured by 10 uses of the word toledoth , "generations." The word means something along the lines of "begotten things," and the toledoth statements head the various sections of Genesis. When Genesis 2:4 announces "these are the begettings of heaven and earth" and…
Showing page 106 of 309
Showing page 39 of 43
The “do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?” controversy surges on, reported most recently in the Economist . It's worth revisiting. In an earlier post, I charged that the claim that Muslims and Christians worship the same God (what I will call the “identity theory”) implicitly denies a central…
In an article on Revelation, J. Daryl Charles observes that the Roman Empire “had brought about the ‘solution' - ‘salvation' for the human race - and was thus worthy of popular adoration. Empire-adoration necessitated a personal symbol which the ancient city-state could not generate. In the Imperial cult resided the…
In his packed little book, Theology and the Spaces of Apocalyptic , Cyril O'Regan observes that “there seems to be a binary opposition in the modern world between apocalyptic and the discipline of theology” (15). Heterodox apocalyptic is everywhere, in Milton and Blake and Romanticism, among Hegelians, especially those on…
G. Biguzzi asks whether the city “Babylon” (Revelation 17-18) represents Rome or Jerusalem. The first option was presented early, by Victorinus. He “(i) gives the circumlocution, ‘city of Rome,' as toe equivalent of Babylon: . . . ruina Babylonis, id est civitatis Romanae, (ii) identifies the seven mountains of Rev…
Medieval biblical scholars read Scripture through the lens of the quadriga, fourfold sense of Scripture. Texts had a literal sense, an allegorical or Christological sense, a tropological or moral sense, and an anagogical sense. In his recent study of de Lubac, Between Apocalypse and Eschaton , Joseph Flipper focuses on…
Here's some seasoned advice to young scholars on how to write an introduction. 1. Write the book first. You don't know what the book is about until you finish it, and you can't introduce what you don't know. This may seem backwards, but it is inevitable, because a thing is…
Showing page 332 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
