Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I just finished re-reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday . I have in the past had the temerity to say that I believe it to be the best novel of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I still maintain that it is at least one…
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be…
I was inspired to write this article after reading John Ahern’s The Case for Shorter Hymnals first published on Theopolis Institute’s website on November 16, 2021. Mr. Ahern and I are writing with different audiences and emphases in mind. I am thankful we both share a mutual desire to see…
If you’ve spent any time in the social-media galaxy of Christian cultural commentators, you have almost definitely run across the Latin phrase Imago Dei . It means image of God . Why they usually say it in Latin, I couldn’t tell you. We saw it in the wake of the…
The Gospel of Matthew—indeed, the New Testament—begins with a list of names, and that list of names is introduced by this heading: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why start like this? Why “the son of David” and “the son…
A blade is raised. A child wails. But the brow under the crown is untroubled. Solomon knows that the raising of the sword will reveal the true parent and the identity of the son. But how did he know this? Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac certainly bears some of the…
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When John first enters heaven, no altar is visible. He sees an altar for the first time when the fifth seal is broken, and at that point his attention is directed to the base of the altar, where the martyred saints have shed their blood (6:9). The next time we…
Richard Beck points out in Unclean that disgust is “promiscuous”: It “has a degree of plasticity; it is molded to fit a given culture.” In this, disgust differs from other emotions: “The core triggers for happiness, fear, sadness, or anger appear to be fairly stable and consistent across cultures. But…
Ernest Becker wrote: “Excreting is the curse that threatens madness because it shows man in his abject finitude, his physicalness, the likely unreality of his hopes and dreams. But even more immediately, it represents man’s utter bafflement at the sheer non-sense of creation: to fashion the sublime miracle of the…
The worship of the beast in Revelation 13 takes the form of an acclamation of His uniqueness. “Who is like the beast?” they cry. This has several layers of significance. This acclamation echoes the acclamation of Israel in the song of Moses: “Who is like You among the gods, O…
The beast of Revelation 13 initiates a double attack against the saints: first blasphemy, then he “makes war” on them (vv. 6-7). The blasphemies are against God, but they are directed also at the name of God, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven (v. 6). The dragon has…
Polybius wrote, “when a man who has been helped when in danger by another does not show gratitude to his preserver, but even goes to the length of attempting to do him injury, it is clear that those who become aware of it will naturally be displeased and offended by…
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