Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the Bible, a memorial is something that brings God's promises and previous actions to mind, so that He can do them again. The rainbow is the model, set in heaven so that Yahweh remembers the covenant He makes with Noah (Genesis 9:13-15). God is light and dwells in a…
The First Epistle to Timothy fits neatly in the context of what King Jesus and the church are doing in the gospels, in Acts, Revelation, and all of the Apostolic Age in between. Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him in his work as a pastor in the “latter days,”…
I have been pastoring Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, Illinois since 1999. We are members of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), but have been practicing catholicity for many years, both personally and corporately. I’ve always believed that the Church of Jesus Christ is much more than the local…
Ecumenism is easy to talk about. It’s doing something to promote it that’s the problem. As a pastor in a town with churches of different denominations, all of whom love their doctrinal distinctions and are jealous to defend them whenever they perceive the slightest challenge, how can you be ecumenical…
Showing page 173 of 309
Showing page 4 of 43
The following is an excerpt taken from my Blessed Are the Hungry (Canon, 2000). The Lord’s Supper is the world in miniature; it has cosmic significance. Within it we find clues to the meaning of all creation and all history, to the nature of God and the nature of man,…
John of Salisbury, the 12th-century political thinker, called Orosius, author of Seven Books of HIstories against the Pagans , a "disciple of the great Augustine." It's true. According to Francis Oakley ( Empty Bottles of Gentilism ), Orosius "had studied with Augustine from 414 to 415, and he himself tells…
Elizabeth Digeser ( Making of a Christian Empire ) observes that the Roman emperor Diocletian came to the purple with a disadvantage: He was a usurper. He needed to secure his power, lest another usurp his place. His strategy was to distribute power to a Tetrarchy, and to claim divine…
Thomas argues ( ST I, 28, 2) that since "everything which is not the divine essence is a creature" and "relation really belongs to god," it follows that relation is identical to essence. More fully: "whatever has an accidental existence in creatures, when considered as transferred to God has a…
Peter Schjeldahl claims that Auguste Rodin "or his hand, as his mind’s executive—wrenched figurative sculpture from millennia of tradition and sent it tumbling into modernity." He admits that There’s a stubborn tinge of vulgarity about Rodin, inseparable from his strength." Yet even when we are put off by vulgarity, "your…
"The doctrine of the Trinity is only possible as a piece of baffled theology," writes Joseph Ratzinger ( Introduction to Christianity , 122). This is true in a sheer historical sense: "Every one of the big basic concepts in the doctrine of the Trinity was condemned at one time or…
Showing page 133 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
