Theopolis Logo

Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

See all
screen-shot-2021-06-03-at-8-49-15-am
Ezra

Ezra: The Aaronic Rest-Giver

If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…

by Rhys LavertyJune 8, 2021
christian-lue-k1e6994p3t8-unsplash
1 John

1 John in Community

Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…

by Tim NicholsJune 1, 2021
noahs-ark-genesis
Hermeneutics

Spending Time with Noah: Reflections on Prepositions in the Flood Narrative

In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…

by Josh JensenMay 25, 2021
86758
Philosophy

Steven Weinberg Destroyed My Faith

Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 18, 2021
screen-shot-2020-09-17-at-9-11-45-am
Colossians

Reconciliation in Colossians 1:20

Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 11, 2021
stalker_still
Movies

Terror of Knowing Myself

Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 4, 2021

Showing page 55 of 309

See all

Showing page 39 of 43

See all

The Olympic Pains

David C. Young points out in his A Brief History of the Olympic Games that “The term Olympic Games is . . . a bad mistranslation of Greek Olympiakoi agones .” The problem is that agones gets converted into ludus , ludi , ludicrum , ie, diversions and games. “The…

July 31, 2012

Beauty’s power

Schindler ( Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God , p. 301) suggests that “creaturely power begins in wonder and gratitude before the inherent beauty of the Other.” Wonder is not a passive contemplation, he’s saying, but the source of our initiative, power, and creativity: “The power of…

July 25, 2012

Marian ontology

Schindler ( Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God , 298-301) points to Mary as a model of created existence: “Mary reveals the original and abiding asymmetry in the creature’s relation to God” ( fiat ).” That is, all creatures receive the gift of existence from God. Second,…

July 25, 2012
Philosophy

Being in Gratitude

In a long footnote in his brilliant Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God (p. 257) , David Schindler gives this lengthy quotation from W. Norris Clarke’s Explorations in Metaphysics: Being-God-Person : He refers to the “profound dimension of receptivity, hence relativity, in all of us, even preceding…

July 25, 2012

Shame

Drawing from John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body (pp. 246-50). Shame means hiding, withdrawal from visibility, withdrawal from communion (Genesis 3:7). God created us with bodies so we can share ourselves with one another - with touch, with speech, with mutual regard.…

July 25, 2012

Become as children

In a 1996 Communio article, Joseph Ratzinger argues that the child in the womb is the basic model of human existence: “For what is at stake here? The being of another person is so closely interwoven with the being of this person, the mother, that for the present it can…

July 24, 2012

Showing page 887 of 2212

Browse by Category

In Medias Res

Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.

Donate

Theopolis is nearly 100% donor-supported. Consider joining us on our mission.