Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
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The Shunammite woman sets Elisha up with a small sanctuary in an upper room, complete with menorah, table, throne-chair, and bed (= altar). When the woman’s son dies, Elisha lays him on the bed/altar, and he revives. He is another Isaac, Elisha a new Abraham. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac was…
The church’s response to Copernicanism is often cited as a textbook example of the tyranny of faith over investigation and reason. Dogmatically committed to geocentrism, the church wanted to shut the door on alternative explanations. The truth, Owen Barfield argues, is very nearly the opposite: “When the ordinary man hears…
We think our popular culture is as crass as it comes, but in 18th century London, in Cripplegate, there was a fart club, where, as Kenneth Baker says, “the members met once a month to give of their best.” The much-maligned Victorian Age was the great cleansing of British culture,…
INTRODUCTION John begins his first epistle where he begins his gospel, announcing the incarnation of the Word who was from the beginning. Through this incarnation, John and his readers have fellowship with the Father and Son. THE TEXT “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we…
The original formless-and-void creation was dark. God created light, and saw it was good. We might think that the creation of light itself would be sufficient to divide light and darkness, but that’s not the way Genesis tells the story. It takes a distinct act to separate light and darkness.…
Words are not hard BBs of meaning. Nor are words like the atoms of ancient atomic theory - impermeable bits of matter. Words are like atoms as understood in modern physics, taking on new properties when they are in the vicinity of other words. Or, if you like, words are…
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