Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The ordination of women to the Christian ministry, specifically the pastoral office of overseeing worship and performing preaching and the Lord's Supper, is a recent development in Church history. From the early church until the late 20th century, women were never ordained as ministers of word and sacrament, not in…
The Office of Deaconness in the Garden The last act of Yahweh God in creating the world was the glorification of humanity by the creation of woman. The woman is the glory of the man, and thus a "better version" of the man, an improvement in the sense of being…
One of the first things the Bible says about God is that He is concerned with keeping time. He is not bound by time, but He is also not detached from time or disinterested in it. From the very beginning of creation, He keeps time. He defines what constitutes a…
We are surrounded by lists; we construct lists all the time. Pop music has its continuous Top 50 lists, and the New York Times has a regular best-sellers list. Many of us are fascinated by the lists of nominees for the academy awards, glance at the Sports pages to see…
Trinity House fellow Rev. Jeff Meyers and Peter Leithart will lecture at the annual All Saints conference at Community Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, November 1-3. Click here for schedule and registration.
The French Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) was one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, a central figure in the ressourcement movement and the nouvelle theologie that inspired the change of atmosphere in the Catholic church leading up to Vatican II. In his book on…
Showing page 184 of 309
Showing page 4 of 43
Throughout the OT, worshipers drew near to God moving from east to west, returning to Eden. The Christian church reversed this, so that Christian worshipers enter by the west door and face east during worship. Is this change justified? What does it signify? No doubt many things, but this at…
1) Jacob goes to Paddan-Aram fleeing from his father’s house; in that far country, he endures abuse and treachery, yet returns with brides and numerous flocks and herds. When he goes out from his father’s house, he has nothing – a staff (32:10) – but he returns to his father’s…
MG Anspach says that “To give a gift in return, to recognize the generosity of the first giver through a corresponding gesture of reciprocity, is to recognize the relation for which the initial gift is only a vehicle.” This helpfully highlights the fact that the return gift is less a…
Levi-Srauss doubts Mauss’ spiritualization of the gift that Mauss draws from the Maori concept of “hau,” the power that is communicated in, with, and under the gift. Rather, hau is “the conscious form whereby men of a given society . . . apprehended an unconscious necessity whose explanation lies elsewhere.”…
Thanks to NSA librarian Ed Iverson for providing references to Mark Twain’s “Letters from Earth,” where he assaults Christianity, and in several places mocks Christian gratitude to God. For instance: “Just so with diseases. If science exterminates a disease which has been working for God, it is God that gets…
Andrew Galloway traces the development of explicit discussions of gratitude in a 1994 article from the Journal of the History of Ideas. A few highlights: 1) Though he admits that gratitude was not “‘invented’ at some moment in human culture,” and that it was “the basis for social and religious…
Showing page 1859 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
