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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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One Lord, One Faith, One Music

In The Whole Church Sings (41), Robin Leaver summarizes Andreas Karlstadt's 53 theses against Gregorian chant (1521): "It is a consecutive tirade, not particularly well-organized, against all forms of liturgical music then current, not just Gregorian chant, which is dismissed as the 'mumblings of the unlearned' (Thesis 31). Chant sung…

November 17, 2017

Apocalyptic Job

Some notes following a discussion about Job with the Theopolis Fellows. 1) Theopolis student John Crawford pointed out that Job is described as blameless ( tam ) at the outset of the book. It's the same word used for Noah, Abraham, and Jacob but it is also used in the…

November 16, 2017
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Jesus and the Children

Children have a high profile already in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus raises the stakes immeasurably. He is the Word made flesh, Word made baby. God speaks His eternal Word in infant flesh, child flesh, boy flesh before He finally speaks it in the crucified flesh of a man. If Jesus…

November 16, 2017

Who Is Roy Moore?

I have defended Alabama Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore’s statements about God and law, but his conduct is indefensible. Not only in decades past but in the past week. Four women have charged that Moore made sexual advances when he was thirty-plus and they were teenagers. One was only 14…

November 15, 2017
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Children of Promise

God created man male and female, blessed them, and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28-29). Procreation is one of the most basic vocations of human beings. The language of “fruitfulness” is originally used of the seed- and fruit-bearing plants called from earth on Day…

November 15, 2017

Myth of 1648

The Peace of Westphalia (1648) has been marked as a turning point in European political history, the origin of the modern international system of sovereign territorial states. Benno Teschke ( Myth of 1648 ) summarizes the thesis: "After 1648, formalized relations between modern sovereign states suspended the criss-crossing relations between…

November 14, 2017

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