Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We are too used to reading the Gospels’ stories of Jesus’ arrest, trial, condemnation, and death from a devotional perspective and so we miss a lot of what’s going on. We actually have a difficult time trying to figure out the meaning of the details of the story. Of course,…
This is the first in a series of essays on "Continuing the Reformation." Many different churches descend from the original Protestant Reformation, and those that are the most conservative are often insistent that they are largely if not completely true to the Reformation, or to the branch from which they…
Trinity House fellow James B. Jordan will be teaching a one-day seminar on "How to Read the Bible for the First Time . . . Again" next Friday, February 22, in North London. The event is sponsored by Emmanuel Evangelical Church, Southgate, costs 20 pounds (10 for theology students) and…
Audio Reading of this Post https://theopolis-blogcast.simplecast.com/episodes/a-primer-on-ash-wednesday What is Ash Wednesday? Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a season focused on the sufferings and cross of Jesus. But Jesus’ death on the cross cannot be separated from the cross we are called to bear in union with him, so…
Welcome to the Trinity House web site. It’s unfinished, as you’ll soon discover, but it’s more finished than it was, and for that we are very grateful. Thanks to David Dalbey for the design, and to my son Sheffield for the execution. Trinity House exists to advance the reformation of…
In our I hope brief blog-versation, Doug Wilson has posted a couple more things to think about. In one he asks who our father/Father is. We either have God or the devil as our father. Well, yes and no. I’m with Doug in what he’s getting at, I think, but…
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Exodus 18’s description of Jethro’s advice to Moses seems disconnected from its context. As Martin Hauge explains ( Descent from the Mountain , 252), the story actually anticipates the entire narrative of chapters 19-40: “The story of the second day presents how parts of the Moses function were transferred to…
Recent studies of the Levitical system have questioned the “facile” links that commentators draw “between its ritual instructions and narratives, its theology, and Israel’s ritual practices” (James Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus , 15). Citing William Gilders ( Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible ) and Wesley Bergen (…
James Watts ( Ritual and Rhetoric , 87-88) calls attention to the repetitions of Leviticus 4-5, especially of the basic roots, cht (sin, sin offering) and ‘ shm (guilt, trespass offering): “the refrain ‘sin that he sinned . . . as sin’ appears eight times (4:3, 14, 23–24, 28, 5:6,…
Andrew Sullivan defends same-sex marriage as a “federalist” who is willing to wait for States to make the change. Not everyone is so patient, or Constitutional. CNN reports today that “Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department will issue a memo Monday that recognizes same-sex marriages ‘to the greatest…
Lists typically don’t make for electrifying reading. Ancient lists in unknown languages less so. But in House Most High , A.R. George’s compilation of ancient Mesopotamian temple lists, the lists offer multiple insights into the structures of ancient religion. Topographical lists show the geographic distribution of temples; “theological” lists, lists…
For two and a half millennia, Mesopotamian cosmology saw the world as a multi-story universe. Wayne Horowitz ( Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography ) summarizes: “Sumerians and Akkadians understood the universe as consisting of superimposed levels separated by open space. From above to below, the levels were: a region of heaven above…
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