Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In this essay we will think about how the whole Bible is structured as one Word of God. To begin with, there is only one Bible, not two. While we divide the Bible into Old and New Testaments, that division has no more meaning than divisions into chapters and verse,…
How should one badly bruised and inadequate church relate to another? (I am not addressing the blessed possessors of absolutely perfect churches, naturally.) I believe there are three things to bear in mind. First, we must be open to the values in other Christian traditions - even Roman Catholic and…
The third and sixth day have a second creative act. Note the chiastic arrangement of the material in these special acts and the parallelism between them, see the figure below. The author arranges the description of each day as a chiasm. Each line in the chiasm is mated with a…
Now the two of them were naked, the man and his woman, and they did not sense shame (Genesis 2:25) The nakedness of Adam and Eve requires several comments. First of all, against those who think that nakedness is what God intended for humanity as a permanent estate, we have…
I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of integration, and our longing for integration in a fragmented world. I’ve been connecting my own covenant epistemology further with the thought of scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi, artist Makoto Fujimura, and Classical Christian metaphysician D.C. Schindler. In my last post , and now in this…
Luke 13:31-33 is one of the strangest passages in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a time note that sounds emphatic “At that very hour.” Then, we are told of Pharisees bringing a message that Herod wants to kill Jesus! In His answer, Jesus speaks of a three day…
Showing page 79 of 309
Showing page 6 of 43
When an Athenian father introduced his child to the phratry, the child had to go through a purification rite. In various occasions, places also had to be purified. Robert Parker describes the purification rites ( On Greek Religion (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology) , 158-9): “Purification was performed with the…
Romans 12:20: If you enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. As Pastor Appel has pointed out this morning, food and feasting are weapons of God’s kingdom. Jesus undermines Pharisaical boundary markers…
After further delays and snags, this week we received the deed to our new building. Soon we will mark this milestone ritually by publicly immersing Dr Atwood in Gatorade. As we have said and will continue to say, this is a tremendous gift from God, and we should be very…
The Bride moves from speaking of Dodi as an “apple tree” with delightful fruit and shade to entering Dodi’s “house of wine.” The “house of wine” is a variation of the image of the tree. The apple tree is a place of fruit and shade, a house of fruit. The…
Some reflection on preachers and preaching today at http://www.firstthings.com/ this morning.
The word “shade” is first used in Genesis 19:8, where Lot says that the angels have come under the “shadow” of his roof. The shadow of Yahweh’s wings welcomes, protects, cools those who draw near to his house. To come into shade is to come out of the sun, out…
Showing page 880 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
