Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the Bible, a memorial is something that brings God's promises and previous actions to mind, so that He can do them again. The rainbow is the model, set in heaven so that Yahweh remembers the covenant He makes with Noah (Genesis 9:13-15). God is light and dwells in a…
The First Epistle to Timothy fits neatly in the context of what King Jesus and the church are doing in the gospels, in Acts, Revelation, and all of the Apostolic Age in between. Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him in his work as a pastor in the “latter days,”…
I have been pastoring Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, Illinois since 1999. We are members of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), but have been practicing catholicity for many years, both personally and corporately. I’ve always believed that the Church of Jesus Christ is much more than the local…
Ecumenism is easy to talk about. It’s doing something to promote it that’s the problem. As a pastor in a town with churches of different denominations, all of whom love their doctrinal distinctions and are jealous to defend them whenever they perceive the slightest challenge, how can you be ecumenical…
Showing page 173 of 309
Showing page 7 of 43
In Saving the Appearances , Owen Barfield describes the consciousness of early humanity as follows: "The human soul may be one of the 'stopping-places' for mana , but what differentiates the primitive mind from ours is, that it conceives itself to be only one of those stopping-places and not necessarily…
There is a glory of the sun, of the moon, and of the stars, Paul says. And star differs from star in glory. He's talking about resurrection, but Joel Salatin ( The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs ) wants to apply the principle to every created thing: "Glory speaks to uniqueness;…
Aristotle taught that women are defective men, with rational and moral capacities inferior to men. This is evident in generation, where the man provides the form, the fertilized seed, while the woman plays a passive role. It's sometimes argued that Aristotle's philosophy of femininity simply reflects his age, with its…
Seven times in John's Gospel, Jesus says "I am" with a predicate: 1)I am the bread of life, 6:35 2) I am the light of the world, 8:12 3) I am the door of the sheep, 10:7 4) I am the good shepherd, 10:14 5) I am the resurrection and…
The following is taken, with minor adaptations, from the introduction to my commentary on the Johannine Epistles . The gospel goes to the Jew first. When they resist, Paul turns to the Gentiles, but he hopes by this to provoke the Jews to jealousy, so that in the end Jews…
In an essay exploring (in typical Marxian fashion) the cultural effects of late capitalism (specifically on architecture), Frederic Jameson tells a fascinating story about the Rockefeller Center, drawing on Robert Fitch's The Assassination of New York . Fitch's story is about the conspiracy to change New York City from a…
Showing page 75 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
