Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is often formulated along dispensational lines. The Holy Spirit’s work in the Old Testament, we tend to think, was earthly, concerned with political and military leadership, while in the New Testament the Spirit’s work has to do with mediating salvation achieved by Christ.…
Homosexuality and the Love of Death Some years ago (September, 1980) Midge Decter published in Commentary one of the most illuminating pieces that I have ever seen on homosexuality. It was a very autobiographical piece dealing with her own summer vacation experiences on Fire Island off of New Jersey. When…
C. The Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39) (continued for previous issue) A final corroboration of this interpretive hypothesis comes from what we might call the "Amalek Pattern" in the Bible. Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh (ch. 12), settles down and…
Speaking of the Church, Romans 11:16-17 says, "And if the root be holy, the branches are also. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the…
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching (tupos didaskales) to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:17-18). In his study of the use of…
John Owen (1616-1683), Biblical Theology, or the Nature, Origin, Development, and Study of Theological Truth in Six Books, translated by Stephen P. Westcott (Pittsburgh: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, [1661] 1994), hardcover, 911 pages, $50.00. Here for the first time in English is one of Owen’s most important Latin works, along…
Showing page 266 of 309
Showing page 8 of 43
Revelation 18 ends with a terrible description of post-apocalyptic Babylon, a city fallen. The description focuses on the silence, enumerating the sounds ( phone , 3x in vv. 22-23) that are no longer found. Sounds, and the unseen sights. We've seen this scene before - in I Am Legend and…
Though over a decade old, David Martin's Pentecotalism: The World Their Parish is still a revelation. Densely textured in both form and matter, it demands, and rewards, slow and careful reading. This is partly because of the book's reprise of Martin's arguments concerning secularization (see his updated theorizing On Secularization…
April Westbrook's “And He Will Take Your Daughters” takes its title from 1 Samuel 8, the prophet Samuel's warning speech to Israel about the dangers of kingship. Westbrook shows that the stories of both Saul and David bear out the warning. The “woman stories” in 1-2 Samuel not only expose…
In a number of places in his writing on Pentecostalism, David Martin refers to a musical variant of the “Halevy thesis,” Elie Halevy's argument that the evangelical revival that birthed Methodism was the framework within which English religion and culture developed during the 19th century. Martin's variant is a musical…
Revelation 18 has an obvious surface structure. Three speakers are introduced - an angel from heaven (v. 1), another voice from heaven (v. 4), and a strong angel tossing a millstone (v. 21). The first angel and the strong angel have a similar message. The first speaks of the fall…
To defend the resurrection, Paul indulges in a piece of cosmology (1 Corinthians 15:35-49), which circulates around seed, body, flesh, and glory. A seed goes into the ground and a plant comes up. Each seed has a body of its own, a gift from God, and each plant too has…
Showing page 402 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
