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…
Showing page 94 of 309
Showing page 42 of 43
An extract from a remarkable sermon given by Rev. Dr. Rufus Okikiola Ositelu, Primate of the Church of the Lord (Aladura) at the 1999 Tabieorar festival in Nigeria: Some of you may be asking the following questions: What can the touch of God do in your lives? How can you…
Jeff Cook's Seven matches Jesus' beatitudes with the seven deadly sins. The beatitudes, he says, “are a picture of the voids created by sin being filled in with the life of heaven.” They provide “eight pictures of resurrection” (26). So, being poor in Spirit is set against pride, envy against…
Like many young earth creationists, Kurt Wise ( Faith, Form, and Time ) argues that the world is created with the appearance of age. He creates stars whose light already reaches the earth, even though they are only an hour old; trees, not merely seeds, with tree rings. Isn't this…
Why is there something rather than nothing? is usually posed as a philosophical question, the ontological question. Kurt Wise ( Faith, Form, and Time ) poses it as a scientific question. According to current models of the history of the cosmos, “organisms have been in existence hundreds of thousands of…
Philip Zimbardo ( Man (Dis)connected ) claims that young American men have become habituated to “regularly experience stimulus” by excessive exposure to porn and video games. He calls is “arousal addiction,” and explains that “in order to get the same amount of stimulation, you need new material, seeing the same…
Babylon the great city appears in Revelation as a prostitute, offering her wine of passion to the nations (Revelation 14:8; 17-18). She resembles the prostitute from the book of Proverbs, Lady Folly. Both offer illicit love and the wine of passion (cf. Proverbs 7:1). Both try to seduce simpletons. Both…
Showing page 421 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
