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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Matthew

Reading Matthew, Identifying Discourses: A Closer Look at the “Six-Discourse” Proposal

In a February blog post for the Theopolis Institute, Benoît Engel offers a thought-provoking challenge to the widely accepted five-discourse structure of Matthew’s Gospel, proposing a sixth discourse in Matthew 21:28–22:14 to reframe the Gospel’s chiastic center. As someone deeply invested in Matthew’s literary design—explored in my book Reading Matthew,…

by Jonathan SedlakJune 26, 2025
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2 Timothy

Avoid Foolish Disputes

Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9 Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.…

by Grant Van BrimmerJune 24, 2025
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Baptism

The Indispensable Mark of Worship: Infant Baptism

Theopolis publishes many polemics, especially on the Sacraments. This piece does not necessarily reflect the views of Theopolis, her board, or her editors. -JW Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the…

by Tommy ThompsonJune 19, 2025
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American Culture

Ecclesiocentric Life is Back

There is in the United States and the Western World some sort of religious revival occurring. Gen Z men—males born between ca 1997 and 2012—are flooding back in to churches. USA Today noted that Gen Z men—and to a lesser degree women—attending churches more than their millennial predecessors and they…

by Miles SmithJune 17, 2025
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Biblical Studies

Sceptical Text-Critical Hypotheses

The primary task of many Biblical scholars (as they see it) is to explain how and why the Biblical text acquired its final form—i.e., what source material it used, how that material was expanded/redacted, who expanded/redacted it, why they did so, what the weather was like at the time, etc.…

by James BejonJune 12, 2025
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Galatians

Flesh & Spirit in Galatia

Galatians 5:5-15 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from…

by Jeff MeyersJune 10, 2025

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Romantic and Civic Nationalism

I n a contribution to Bonds of Imperfection , Joan Lockwood O'Donovan examines varieties of nationalism and the neglected biblical and theological sources for understanding modern nations. She identifies two strains of nationalism that have developed since the nineteenth century. The first, “romantic nationalism,” takes the nation “as a unique…

May 1, 2017

What's Wrong With American Air Travel?

T ight accommodations, high prices, delays and cancellations, abysmal customer service. Nearly everything is wrong with American airline companies. In Europe, by contrast, fares are lower and service is better. Even a brief 1 1/2 hour flight has time for a quick sandwich, a fair sight better than a packet…

April 28, 2017

X and Non-X

I n an essay on von Balthasar's ontology of generosity (in Ordering Love ), David L. Schindler calls attention to the dualities we often invoke in “accounting for our experience”: “God and the world; the order of reality and the order of knowing; the soul, or mind, and the body;…

April 28, 2017

Social Economy

Charles Taylor's Modern Social Imaginaries examines fundamental features of the modern social imaginary, the “ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie…

April 28, 2017

Commerce and Its Discontents

C harles Taylor ( Modern Social Imaginaries ) observes that one of the great boasts of modernization has been to pacify war-mongering noblemen—to turn swords, if not to ploughshares, at least to shares: “the transition to the commercial stage was understood as having effected the great internal pacification of modern…

April 28, 2017

Learning from the Hapsburgs

R oss Douthat argues that the cultural and religious diversity of Europe and the US is an enemy of democracy: “mass immigration and cultural fragmentation have brought authoritarian temptations back to life.” What to do? Douthat suggests that: The cause of liberal order might be better served by leaders who…

April 28, 2017

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