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

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Biblical Studies

Levels of Language

A couple years ago, I read Paul Graham’s ruminations on higher- and lower-level languages in Hackers and Painters . Although he’s talking about computer languages, his insights have bearing on biblical language and hermeneutics. So bear with me while I lay out some of the basic points, and then we’ll…

by Tim NicholsAugust 7, 2018
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Ecclesiology

The Church at the Center

Toward the end of the Revelation, John sees a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The old created order in Adam has passed away, and the new order under the lordship of Jesus has been established. Within this new creation John also sees “the holy city, the…

by Bill SmithAugust 3, 2018
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Epistemology

Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World: D.C. Schindler: Integrative Metaphysics

I have been talking with you about integration—an elusive, allusive, word, pregnant with something we long for. I have suggested that what might be rightly a natural longing has been exacerbated by our own modern Western milieu’s dominating devotion to bits and bytes, a prevailing sense of fragmentation. Fragmentation is…

by Esther Lightcap MeekJuly 31, 2018
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Art

The Stone Upon the Well

Sunday morning found me kneeling at the foot of my bed, trembling, pebbles of sweat leaping off the edge of my brow and nose, and hitting the floor in front of me, but not from piety was I procumbent; though as a minister for over a decade, I had made…

by Remy WilkinsJuly 26, 2018
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Immigration

Counseling, Immigration, and the Politics of the Gospel

In April of this year, President Trump issued a zero-tolerance border policy that separated families, specifically children from their parents who had crossed the USA/Mexico border be it illegally or as asylum seekers . In mid-June, Trump dropped this policy of splitting up families, however there are still children who…

by Michael SpalioneJuly 24, 2018
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Biblical Studies

Joseph, the Righteous Husband

During the Middle Ages, Joseph, the husband of Mary, was the butt of many jokes. Medieval theater and art often depicted him as something of a buffoon, decidedly marginal to the gospel story. In part, this was the unfortunate obverse of the exaltation of Mary; any man would suffer by…

by Peter LeithartJuly 19, 2018

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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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