Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The resurrection stories in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are among the strangest stories in all of the literature of the world, even among the strangest stories in the Bible. That is true of each Gospel’s accounts individually, but even more of the collection as a whole. On the one…
As a pastor, I’m interested in discipleship. Christians are called to be disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Discipleship has everything to do with the disciplines we walk by in our lives. Things like Bible reading, prayer, and fasting are hallmarks of standard Christian discipleship. The basic thrust is that…
Psalm 1 is justly famous among biblical texts. It opens the Psalter, it’s a paean to the life-giving power of the Law, and it beautifully describes righteous life as a stable, fruitful tree. It subtly weaves the contrasting threads of wickedness and righteousness into a succinct summary of biblical wisdom:…
No book is more quoted in Hebrews than the Psalter: there are quotations and allusions to psalms on virtually every page. And many of the quotations are not passing references but closely considered and repeatedly cited as the author of Hebrews develops his central arguments. Much of Hebrews is exposition…
Howard Bloom is a beautiful hypocrite. The author of books in as different subjects as Mohammed, scientific theory, and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, he professes to be a “stone cold atheist.” Yet in spite of that profession, Bloom obviously writes as a Jew; that is, he writes with…
There may be some debate about who deserves the title “the King of American literature,” but, at least to my mind, there should be no debate over who deserves to be “the Queen” – let’s give the crown to Flannery O’Connor. She is, however, a very unlikely queen. Unlikely, not…
Showing page 11 of 309
Showing page 5 of 43
The following was delivered as a Convocation Address at the beginning of the 2017-18 Theopolis Institute's Junior Fellows Program on August 14, 2017 . Theopolis is the embodiment of a dream. Our name expresses the contents of that dream. We dream of a polis , a city. Every city is…
Hezekiah's Passover (2 Chronicles 30) has a prominent place in the Chronicler's account of his reign. As William Johnstone points out ( 1 & 2 Chronicles ), Hezekiah's reign moves out from the temple to the city to the nations. He reopens and purifies the house of Yahweh (2 Chronicles…
Welcome to Leithart the blog. For those who are coming to the blog for the first time, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Peter Leithart, President of the Theopolis Institute , a study center and leadership training program based in Birmingham, Alabama. After spending several decades in the…
Philip Watkins ( Gratitude and the Good Life ) identifies three “pillars of gratitude.” These are components of gratitude as an emotional “trait,” as opposed to gratitude expressed in response to specific good received or as an emotional state: “These are presumed to be three subordinate facets that contribute to…
No one before the twentieth century, writes Robert Solomon ( The Passions ), paid serious philosophical attention to the emotions. There's a good reason for that, writes Thomas Dixon ( From Passions to Emotions ): The category “emotion” didn't exist prior to the 19th century. Between 1800 and 1850, there…
God made us to be knowers. We long to know. Esther Meek argues ( Longing to Know ) that the frustration of this desire is one of the effects of skepticism and relativism: “To be human is to make sense of experience. There are voices today that would discourage the…
Showing page 153 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
