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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Culture

An Introduction to the Sacred Music of Josquin

This essay is adapted from my articles in Theopolis’s In Medias Res as a series of Holy Week meditations. Like many celebrities such as Kanye or Beyoncé or Adele, Josquin des Prez (d. 1521) was often known only by his first name, in his own time as now. “Josquin” is…

by John AhernJuly 29, 2025
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Numbers

Sight and Memory: Examining the Monuments of Numbers

Sight is a major theme in the scriptures. The church has long identified sight’s relationship to the future fulfillment of the eschaton. As Paul says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor 13.12). Sight is associated with…

by Matthew DarbyJuly 22, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Yahweh’s Flame: the Gospel through Symbolism

What is the chief end of man? —yes, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But how ought man–and all creation–so glorify him? I propose a Theopolitan addition to the catechism, question and answer number 1.5, begun in the last question and answered as follows: Earth’s inhabitants were created to…

by Ben LoveladyJuly 16, 2025
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Culture

Morality and the Practice of Poetry

Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words. Genesis 49:21 Frederick Buechner once said, “We move into the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” In poetry, this happens by way of a compressed code of analogs; often, two or more very ordinary things begin to reveal something that…

by Garrett SoucyJuly 8, 2025
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Ephesians

The Trinitarian Structure of Obedience

The evangelical milieu of America has often lost a vision of the fruit of repentance. We tend to simplify repentance by asking for forgiveness. After all, Jesus tells Peter to forgive 70 times 7. This verse must be paired with Paul’s scoffing at the question: why not sin more so…

by Matthew CoreyJuly 3, 2025
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Luke

The Hemorrhaging Woman, the Eucharist, and the Sermon

I. The hemorrhaging woman. En route to Jairus’ house, Jesus is touched by a woman with a hemorrhage of blood (Matt 9:18–26; Mk 5:21–34; Lk 8:40–48). The story is one that many of us know very well. She has been yoked to her illness for twelve years, all of her…

by Mark BriansJuly 1, 2025

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Atonement and Theology

In his recent Atonement, Law, and Justice , Adonis Vidu examines historical atonement theories in relation to accepted notions of law and justice that were current in the world of the theologians who produced the theories. His book is “an interdisciplinary reading of the development of atonement theory from the…

September 30, 2014

Eat an Almond, Kill a Bee

James Hamblin reports on new research that shows almonds are even better for us than we thought. Eating an ounce of almonds a day is associated with lower rates of heart disease, prevention of diabetes and arthritis, lower changes of Alzehimer’s. No wonder the almond has overtaken the peanut as…

September 29, 2014

Was Jesus A Pauper?

David Fiensy tries to avoid “polar opposites” in the essays collected in Christian Origins and the Ancient Economy . He doesn’t think Jesus was “desperately poor” or that Galileans in general were “half-starving.” Galilee wasn’t a “boom center” but it wasn’t famine-ridden either. On Jesus in particular, Fiensy explores the…

September 29, 2014

Mediated Immediacy

At the Paradosis conference at John Brown University, Edith Humphrey remarked briefly on the paradox of mediation and presence. Her point was that, though God’s presence to us is mediated, that mediation is embedded in or infused by an immediacy of presence. This must be so if we are going…

September 29, 2014

Wall Street Temptations

In an insightful piece at BloombergView , Michael Lewis analyzes the ways Wall Street affects the character of the eager young graduates who come to make their fortunes. Some of the temptations, he says, are obvious - emphasizing short-term gains or using financial success as a cover for moral laziness…

September 29, 2014

Animal Grammar

The first installment of a review of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice at the Trinity House site .

September 29, 2014

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