Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Can it be that it has been two whole years since I contributed a Theopolis Post! I had been pursuing the topic of integration: “Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World.” I had defined “integration,” simply, as creative putting together. I had posed that seeking it calls for a fundamentally integrative…
What is known as the miracle of the “Feeding of the Five Thousand” occurs in Mark’s Gospel in chapter 6. As with other gospel writers, Mark has a few different points to make as he moves through this story (included in all four gospel accounts) and its surrounding material. Three…
To begin with the source of this narrative: Since no human being was present to observe these events, we must assume that this narrative was revealed directly by God to a human author. There are three ways this might have happened. First, we might read, "God said to Abraham (or…
The serious Bible student cannot help but be struck by the deviousness of Jacob in Genesis 27. If one already expected some underhanded dealings from this twin-born-second whose name means “supplanter” and whose bargaining with his brother for the birthright in Genesis 25 seemed incredibly weighted in his own favor,…
From Barna stats to mainstream headlines, it seems as though the discordant nature of this last year has taken such a toll on churches in the United States that, for many, the injuries have been fatal. It has become a regular occurrence to hear about a congregation that continues to…
In The Bad News Bears (1976), a city councilman hires a washed-up minor league baseball player with a drinking problem to coach a little league team of leftover misfits. Underdog sports movies are usually full of sentimentalism and dramatic victories, but this film is a commentary on the failing dream…
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Alec Ryrie portrays what it meant to be an early Protestant in his Being Protestant in Reformation Britain . As the TLS reviewer points out, this is no longer a fashionable question: “Historians of the early Reformation now prefer to use the term ‘evangelicals,’ in recognition of the fact that…
Greeks expressed their gratitude, FS Naiden notes ( Smoke Signals for the Gods ), with sacrifice: “Helliodorus, hellenizing his Phoenicians, says that Tyrians used such a formula after one of their number won at the Pythian games. Returning home with the victor, they sacrificed at the seaside, niketerion and charisterion,…
Many classicists suggest that Greek sacrifice was mechanical and automatic. One of the burdens of Naiden’s Smoke Signals for the Gods is to show otherwise. Sacrifices were only acceptable to the gods if the worshiper was ritually and morally pure. Naiden quoted Antiphon: “Many people with unclean hands or some…
Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for works, toil, and perseverance, for their rigorous testing of pretended apostles (Revelation 2:2-3). But then He lodges a stunning charge: They have left their first love ( ten agapen sou ten proten aphekes ). What does that mean? Agape in the New Testament…
When John sees Jesus in glory (Revelation 1:9-20), he describes him from head to toe and back (vv. 14-16). It’s a wasf , a blazon, like the descriptions of the Song of Songs. Jesus is the Lover, and He commissions John as His amanuensis to write love letters to His…
The translation of the name Yahweh into Greek as ho on , “the One who is,” has been seen as a Platonizing or Hellenizing move. Sean McDonough ( YHWH at Patmos , 194) demurs: “God’s declaration of his name, ‘I am who I am,’ served as a natural bridge between…
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