Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"The faithful use of sacraments, and indeed a fully sacramental view of creation, is vital to the life of the Church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites that directly shape the community and the Body, because they were given by God for that express purpose. A deficient practice of…
Weightlessness is fun. At the beginning of Gravity (2013) , we can see one astronaut dancing the Macarena and another one playing with his jetpack. They like it out there in the space. Apart from zero-gravity they can enjoy beautiful views, and even the silence is likable, although Matt Kowalski…
I recently went to a lunch that is more or less quarterly. About a dozen of us go. It is a lunch held in honor of a retired professor of religion and philosophy. I have been one of his acquaintances for more than 40 years. In his tenure as professor,…
Why Theopolis? Don't we already have seminaries and Bible colleges and other institutions for theological education? Why do we need another one? I get this question now and again. I ask myself this question even more often. What follows is a partial answer. Back in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to…
I think the logic of the Lutheran Reformation can be summarized in one sentence, attributed to Luther himself: "God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does." The first half of that statement is justification by faith . God doesn't need our works to satisfy his justice or…
If you are looking to start a fight with Christians, there is hardly a better subject to do so than the arts. Music, movies, paintings, and literature have provided no small battlegrounds for Christians to war. We are emotionally invested in the arts. A song, a book, or a film…
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2 Kings 16:12 describes Ahaz’s consecration of the altar built from the prototype in Damascus. Three times in that verse he is called “the king,” and in this designation, the author of Kings picks up the technique employed in 1 Kings 13 to describe Jeroboam’s consecration of the altar at…
Psalm 144:12 asks that the Lord make “our daughters as corner pillars cut after the pattern of a palace.” “Pattern” is TABNIT, the noun used to describe the pattern that Moses sees on the mountain and later guides the building of the tabernacle. “Palace” is HEYKAL, the word used for…
McGrath offers the following genealogy of the distinction of nature and supernature: Prior to the 12th century, theologians defined grace as a “gift of God” without distinguishing various kinds of gifts. But this left open the question of whether “all of God’s gifts” should be “identified as God’s grace.” Is…
CS Lewis said that the courtly love tradition arose from “Ovid misunderstood.” Medieval soteriology might be said to have arisen from “Augustine misunderstood.” Everyone was Augustinian and no one wanted to be Pelagian, but Augustine’s actual teaching was confused by transmission problems both of his own works and of conciliar…
What happens to Paul’s doctrine of justification if “faith” in the phrase “justified by faith” is a name for Jesus, as it appears to be in Gal 3:23, 25, on analogy with the use of PISTOS as a name in Rev 19:11? Or, perhaps, if “faith” is shorthand for “faith…
Cicero says, justice is rendering to each man his due, and Pelagius agrees. Paul says, justice is God’s giving ungodly sinners eternal life, and Augustine follows Paul. Remigius of Auxerre noted the contrast: “Mea iustitia est malum pro malo reddere. Tu solus iustus, quam circa nos ostendisti, reddens bonum pro…
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