Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I revisited Athanasius’s On the Incarnation in light of Advent this year. A particular passage struck me with a question that I hadn’t considered before. When addressing Adam’s fall, Athanasius says this: “If then there were only the offense and not the consequence of corruption, repentance would have been fine.…
There is much wisdom for kings in the first letter of Paul to the Church in Corinth. As I am preaching through this letter, this is one of the major themes that stands out. That is the theme of the reign of the Christian as we live in union with…
1 The title should not be a surprise to anyone who believes the Bible to be true. According to the Bible, any and every faith and religion that does not conform to the Gospel of Christ are not only false, but ultimately inspired by false spirits. Though Jeffrey Niehaus is…
Names are weighty things, a fact repeatedly evidenced in the biblical narrative. There are several occasions when the names mothers or fathers chose for their children, and the reasons for which the names were chosen, are given extended attention in the text. Much of Genesis 29 and 30, for instance,…
Growing up, I was crestfallen about any Christmas that fell on Sunday. Christmas on Sunday meant going to church when I’d rather lollygag around the Christmas tree in my pajamas, playing with new toys. Christmas on Sunday was a drag. If I still felt that way, I know what I’d…
Growing up in the church in Southern America, there was an oft-used category for leaders in the church. It was a category which was used to justify a variety of rules and restrictions on church leaders. Leaders were to be “above reproach” and that meant not drinking in public or…
Showing page 36 of 309
Showing page 7 of 43
This is the last in a series of posts summarizing the way I’ve taught an Old Testament survey to kids aged 5-11 this summer. Overall, it’s worked well. We’ve covered a lot, and the kids have learned some of the basic patterns of the Bible. It got more difficult the…
Archaeology seems to be on the margins of cultural history, the province of antiquarians. In her fascinating Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism , though, Cathy Gere traces the impact of Arthur Evans’ excavation and reconstruction of Minoan civilization on modernists from Nietzsche to Freud, Joyce to Robert Graves. Evans…
For the past several decades, Christian activists have been concerned to apply Christian standards to the political and moral issues of our day. I support the effort in principle, and agree with much of the substance. Yet something is missing. In their obsession with discovering biblical standards they haven’t paid…
Exodus 20:23-24: You shall not make other gods besides me, gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves. You shall make an altar for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and oxen; in every place…
The Ten Words deal with perennial sins. Idolaters are everywhere all the time. We all hate, lust, envy. Poison of asps is under our lips too. The Ten Words are addressed to us because they are addressed to everyone. But what use are all these detailed commandments? Why do we…
The opening pages of Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (pp. 1-9) are a brilliant reflection on theory formation. Pierre Bourdieu examines the “theoretical distortion” that get embedded in social science, especially anthropology, when the observer ignores the “social conditions in which the…
Showing page 895 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
