Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Can it be that it has been two whole years since I contributed a Theopolis Post! I had been pursuing the topic of integration: “Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World.” I had defined “integration,” simply, as creative putting together. I had posed that seeking it calls for a fundamentally integrative…
What is known as the miracle of the “Feeding of the Five Thousand” occurs in Mark’s Gospel in chapter 6. As with other gospel writers, Mark has a few different points to make as he moves through this story (included in all four gospel accounts) and its surrounding material. Three…
To begin with the source of this narrative: Since no human being was present to observe these events, we must assume that this narrative was revealed directly by God to a human author. There are three ways this might have happened. First, we might read, "God said to Abraham (or…
The serious Bible student cannot help but be struck by the deviousness of Jacob in Genesis 27. If one already expected some underhanded dealings from this twin-born-second whose name means “supplanter” and whose bargaining with his brother for the birthright in Genesis 25 seemed incredibly weighted in his own favor,…
From Barna stats to mainstream headlines, it seems as though the discordant nature of this last year has taken such a toll on churches in the United States that, for many, the injuries have been fatal. It has become a regular occurrence to hear about a congregation that continues to…
In The Bad News Bears (1976), a city councilman hires a washed-up minor league baseball player with a drinking problem to coach a little league team of leftover misfits. Underdog sports movies are usually full of sentimentalism and dramatic victories, but this film is a commentary on the failing dream…
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In a book written in the late 1370s, the surgeon John Arderne prescribed “the Bible and other tragedies” as remedies. These books were good sources, as Henry Ansgar Kelly explains in summarizing Arderne’s point, “for humorous stories of a good and decent kind that doctors can use to provoke their…
Barth defines faith as the “determination of human action by the being of the Church and therefore by Jesus Christ, by the gracious address of God to man.” While there may be weaknesses with this, there are several commendable things about the definition: 1) It does not polarize faith and…
If, as Barth says, theology NEED not be part of the genus “science,” why has it been so designated? It appears that the impetus is an effort to achieve precisely the things that Barth says it does NOT need from science. Barth says, “As regards method, [theology] has nothing to…
Barth quotes from J. Gerhard, who rejected the designation of theology as a science. One of his grounds was: ” scientiae certitudo ab internis et inhaerentibus principiis, fidei vero ab externis videlicet ab autoritate revelantis pendet ,” which in substance means that science derives its certainty from principles that are…
Jim Jordan has pointed out that the Greek word “oikoumene” is used in the NT to refer to the Hellenistic and Helleno-Roman world, rather than to the entire inhabited earth. It could be translated as “empire.” Against this background, the usage in Heb 2:5 is very striking, since it talks…
A discussion of death in the prefall world led to this thought: What was Adam supposed to do when a big dragon came to his wife and began tempting her to sin? I think he was supposed to do exactly what the Last Adam did: Crush the serpent’s head. But…
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