Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Part 1 We do not understand the role of women in ministry because we do not understand the role of men in ministry. We do not understand the role of men in ministry because we do not understand the church. We do not understand the church because the consumer culture…
1. One structure The Creation account (G1:1-2:4) conspicuously conveys meaning using the literary shape of the text. The narrative is told with formulaic patterns, repetitions, and parallelism. The Garden account is different. It is viewed as a separate text, with its own author, employing its own structure. This second account’s…
I was reading James Jordan’s Creation in Six Days while also preparing for Trinity Sunday in which the gospel reading is John 3:1-15. As providence would have it Jordan dropped an easter egg for me along the lines of baptism. In chapter 5 he points out, “ On the second…
It's true. There is no verse in the New Testament that commands or records an infant baptism. This poses a problem for some Christians. Those who only look for explicit commands, or those whose theology is limited to the New Testament, will conclude that infant baptism is not biblical and…
1. Goal This paper’s goal is to identify and describe a literary strategy employed by scripture, namely using two episodes that cover similar territory or themes using details drawn from opposite ends of a number of spectrums. Once described the reader may recognize numerous other instances of this strategy in…
Numbers 14 records the tragic story of Israel’s decision to rebel against Yahweh and Moses. Twelve spies had been sent into the land to bring back a report to Israel. All twelve spies agreed: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey”…
Showing page 30 of 309
Showing page 7 of 43
David Ganz (essay in The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages , 21) quotes this from the decree of the Council or Synod of Macon, 585: “We have learned from the report of the brethren that some churches in some places have deviated from the divine command in…
A couple of lines from Auden’s The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (W.H. Auden: Critical Editions) have been sticking with me: “Lies and lethargies police the world / In its periods of peace.” Start with the cynical substance of the lines. Lies and lethargies don’t corrupt or ruin the…
A student, David Henry, points out that the word “fish” is used three times in Jonah 1-2, and notes that twice it is masculine ( dag ; 1:17; 2:10) but once in a feminine form ( dagah ; 2:1). A gender-bending fish? Uncertainty on the part of the writer? Or…
Next door at the “On the Square” yesterday ( http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2012/12/purify-her-uncleanness ), Orthodox writer Carrie Frederick Frost ponders the Orthodox traditions of churching women after childbirth. She points out that the rites are comparatively late: Not until the 12th century are there rites for purification of women. And she says that…
In a 2002 article on stem cell research in The Public Interest , Leon Kass offered a gruesomely memorable test for the claim that a human embryo is nothing but a piece of tissue. On the one hand, he noted, if an embryo dies “we are sad—largely for her loss…
James B. Jordan has been a friend of mine since his student days at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. I was his teacher there, but since then he has taught me many things. Jim is a Bible scholar who digs far below the surface of the text. He is an expert…
Showing page 830 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
