Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A while back a friend told me that his church had finally introduced weekly communion. He told me that they were having an 8:00 a.m. service on Sundays for anyone who wanted to have communion. At present only about five people were coming to this service, but he was hopeful…
According to James B. Jordan’s outline of Deuteronomy, the first commandment section runs from 6:1 to 11:32, and the second commandment section begins with 12:1. 1 That this division of the text is sound is confirmed by a comparison of 6:1 with 12:1. Deuteronomy 6:1 announces that "this is the…
Calling Jerusalem the "holy city" comes so naturally to Christians that it comes as something of a surprise to realize how infrequently the phrase is used in Scripture. Not only is Jerusalem rarely called holy, but in the Old Testament this classification is found only in texts that refer to…
Nicodemus’s conversation with Jesus in John 3:1-15 is often regarded as an illustration of the tremendous stupidity of the Jews of our Lord’s day. Those who take the passage this way fail to recognize the profound nature of Nicodemus’s questions and of Jesus’ answers. In verse 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus…
In his book 1994? , Harold Camping asserts that the life spans of the primeval patriarchs of Genesis 5 & 11 were actually epochs, one after another. This together with other mistakes in interpretation yields for him a creation date of 11013 B.C. From here, Camping tries to work out…
I have received a number of letters asking for my comments on this difficult passage. Here is my best shot! 2. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything, and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. This statement opens a new section…
Showing page 283 of 309
Showing page 43 of 43
A priest of Auxerre writing in the early middle ages recorded some details of the Easter celebration: “Having receive the pilota [a leather ball] from the newest canon, the dean, or someone in his place, in former times wearing an amice on his head and the other clergy likewise, began…
In a statistically rich discussion of global trends in family life, Castells notes that in the US “The number of sex partners in the last 12 months shows a limited range of sexual partnerships for the overwhelming majority of the population: 66.7 percent of men and 74.7 percent of women…
Fundamentalism in its “actual content, experiences, opinions, history, and theories” is “so diverse as to defy synthesis.” So writes Berkeley sociologist Manuel Castells in The Power of Identity (Blackwell, 2004). Yet, thanks to an exhaustive study commissioned by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences published under the title Fundamentalisms…
Do secular democracies have the right to engage in “high justice,” that is, “the attempt to balance the cosmic books, to stabilize a shaken universe” to answer the blood that cries from the ground by shedding blood? That is the question Jody Bottum raises in a fascinating article in the…
1 Peter 2:24-25: He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. As…
On stage and in movies, revenge stories often end in bloodshed. To avenge herself on her ex-husband Jason for taking another wife, Medea kills her own children. Orestes kills his mother because she murdered his father and her husband, and Hamlet’s attack on his uncle-father Claudius engulfs the entire royal…
Showing page 1958 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
