Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After 9 chapters of genealogy, the Chronicler begins his history with the death of Saul and the rise of David. The latter part of 1 Chronicles 12 describes the assembly of warriors from the twelve tribes to Hebron to celebrate David’s coronation as king. They have a three-day feast, with…
In the introduction we saw that Matthew and Luke are the only gospels which include “fire” in John the Baptist's narrative. If Matthew and Luke are the priestly and prophetic gospels, the inclusion of fire is of great importance. Priests are servants of the altar, working with fire every day.…
The feet of the great statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream cannot be interpreted as a prediction of the states of modern Europe, but the lessons from their failure can certainly be applied . The statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream spoke of God’s ordaining of four empires which would rule in succession throughout…
This past Sunday afternoon, I drove just a few miles west of my neighborhood to visit the corner of Sherman Blvd. and Burleigh St. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Amid a crowd I stood, looking at a huge gas station and multiple vehicles, all completely destroyed. Hundreds of feet of yellow caution…
1 Chronicles 12 is a flashback. The Chronicler has told the story of Saul’s death at the battle of Mount Gilboa. He has described how “all Israel” gathered to David at Hebron to make him king over all Israel (11:1-3). At the beginning of chapter 12, we move back to…
A great story draws you into specific details while delivering an ending that keeps you coming back. It brings you into the minutiae of life in such a way that requires patience, only to deliver a breath of fresh air time and again. The climax of the biblical story comes…
Showing page 126 of 309
Showing page 7 of 43
In the Greek text of Ephesians 2:8, the statement “and this not of ourselves, it is the gift of God” is chiastically structured. A wooden translation is: “and this not out of ourselves, of God the gift,” with the EX HUMON (“out of ourselves”) chiastically matching the genitive THEOU (“of…
Here’s a summary of part of Milbank’s critique of Derrida (from Theology and Social Theory , pp. 307-311). Derrida attacks Western metaphysics by focusing on the attempt to separate a “meaning” out from the “play of signs.” In most Western systems, this meaning is associated with an original meaning that…
A note against empiricism: Derrida quotes Scheler (in his essay on Levinas, “Violence and Metaphysics”) to this effect: “I see not only the eye of an other, I see also that he looks at me.” That is, what is seen is not only a thing, a dead object, but also…
Levinas claims that an absolute other must necessarily be invisible. If the other is visible, I can at least “capture” and “grasp” and “encompass” him in my gaze, which is the first moment in a sequence that could lead to capturing, grasping, and encompassing and dominating him in other ways.…
Yeats said that the classical world was fundamentally tragic, with the Oedipus myth as the founding myth — the man kills his father and marries his mother. Yeats would have been better off pointing to the myth of Zeus, for that truly is the founding myth of the Olympian order,…
In his history of the ancient concept of progress, E. R. Dodds says that one fundamental limitation on the idea of progress was imposed by the theory of Forms, both in Platonic and in the Aristotelian version. For Plato all progress consists in approximation to a pre-existing model; the model…
Showing page 2196 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
