Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In this essay we will think about how the whole Bible is structured as one Word of God. To begin with, there is only one Bible, not two. While we divide the Bible into Old and New Testaments, that division has no more meaning than divisions into chapters and verse,…
How should one badly bruised and inadequate church relate to another? (I am not addressing the blessed possessors of absolutely perfect churches, naturally.) I believe there are three things to bear in mind. First, we must be open to the values in other Christian traditions - even Roman Catholic and…
The third and sixth day have a second creative act. Note the chiastic arrangement of the material in these special acts and the parallelism between them, see the figure below. The author arranges the description of each day as a chiasm. Each line in the chiasm is mated with a…
Now the two of them were naked, the man and his woman, and they did not sense shame (Genesis 2:25) The nakedness of Adam and Eve requires several comments. First of all, against those who think that nakedness is what God intended for humanity as a permanent estate, we have…
I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of integration, and our longing for integration in a fragmented world. I’ve been connecting my own covenant epistemology further with the thought of scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi, artist Makoto Fujimura, and Classical Christian metaphysician D.C. Schindler. In my last post , and now in this…
Luke 13:31-33 is one of the strangest passages in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a time note that sounds emphatic “At that very hour.” Then, we are told of Pharisees bringing a message that Herod wants to kill Jesus! In His answer, Jesus speaks of a three day…
Showing page 79 of 309
Showing page 4 of 43
Yuri Slezkine opens his book, The Jewish Century (11-12), with the arresting claim that "The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century, in particular, is the Jewish Century. " He makes good on the claim with brief glimpses of what makes modernity modern. Modernization is itself "about…
Pierre-Simon Ballanche (1776-1847) is hardly a household name today, but he was a significant literary figure in 19th-century France. Albert Joseph George calls him a " precursor to romanticism ," and he was an eccentrically Christian advocate for social reforms of various kinds. In his Ville des expiations , unpublished…
We all know the story. Wise men come from the east, following a star to Jerusalem. They tell King Herod they’re looking for the “king of the Jews.” Like the rest of Jerusalem, Herod is troubled, not thrilled, by the news. To Herod, another king must be a rival for…
The Chronicler leaves out all the juicy stories of David's career - some of his major battles, his youthful heroism, Saul's persecution, adultery, murder, household disintegration. David isn't perfect , but he's cleaned up enough to join respectable company. Mark Thronveit asks whether the Chronicler is a "spin doctor." He…
We live in an Age of Anger , writes Pankaj Mishra. He sees it everywhere: "wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, suicide bombings in Belgium, Xinjiang, Nigeria and Turkey, insurgencies from Yemen to Thailand, massacres in Paris, Tunisia, Florida, Dhaka and Nice. Conventional wars between states are dwarfed by…
George Monbiot notes the individualization of entertainment ( Out of the Wreckage ): "Television, while it tended to shut down conversation, at least was something that we watched, in the early days, together. Now we often watch is alone. We spend hours every day watching other people doing what we…
Showing page 107 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
