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31-03-0213
Hermeneutics

Apocalyptic Eyes

Flying scrolls. Red horses. Beasts coming out of the sea. Winged women. The list goes on. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is like a cross between science fiction and Marvel comics. And the Bible has a fair bit of this sort of thing. Daniel sees visions in Babylon, Zechariah sees…

by Toby SumpterNovember 4, 2014
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Theopolis News

New Name, New Look

Trinity House Institute has taken a new name, the Theopolis Institute. This striking new name expresses our unique vision and mission and captures the unified purpose behind all our specific programs and activities. We still have Bible, liturgy, and culture in our tagline. We still offer the same courses on…

by TheopolisNovember 4, 2014
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Atonement

Not Fearing the Devil

Adam Kotsko offers a socio-political variation on the Christus Victor atonement theory in his 2010 study, The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation . He does this by explaining "the devil" in terms of the Hegelian concept of "objective spirit," Geist . As Kotsko puts it, Geist "refers…

by Peter LeithartOctober 13, 2014
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Leviticus

The Meaning of Sacrifice

Two factors keep Nahtali Meshel from discussing the meaning of sacrifice until late in his The "Grammar" of Sacrifice . The first has to do with the texts he draws from: "P says little about the meaning of its rituals" (174). The other has to do with the grammatical theory…

by Peter LeithartOctober 8, 2014
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Leviticus

Praxemics

Chapter 5 of Naphtali Meshel's The "Grammar" of Sacrifice focuses on "praxemics," the physical actions of sacrificial ritual. Praxemes are constituted by six elements: an "atomact," an elementary physical act or gesture; an actor; an object that is acted up; a target for the action and often for the object…

by Peter LeithartOctober 6, 2014
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Leviticus

Jugation and Hierarchy

Two chapters of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice cover what he calls “jugation” and “hierarchies.” The first involves the addition of other materials to an animal offering. Jugates include wine, cereal, and oil that are added to the animals (zoemes) that are offered in sacrifice. Some jugates are coordinated…

by Peter LeithartOctober 1, 2014

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Philosophy

Pure gift

In his Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Oxford World’s Classics) , Rousseau muses on the “complete and utterly disinterested benevolence” that he would show if he could avoid “forming an attachment to anyone in particular” and “taking on the burden of any responsibilities.” If only he could be entirely anonymous,…

September 19, 2012

Trinity Institute - What They’re Saying

It was Jodocus van Lodenstein, the Dutch reformer, who first coined epigram, ‘Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda est secundum Verbum Dei: the church is reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.’ Central to that ongoing reforming work in our day is the recovery of richly Biblical worship.…

September 19, 2012

Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION As He has done before (Isaiah 41:1), Yahweh again summons the peoples to court to present their cases against Him (43:8-9). In the courtroom of history, Israel is a witness in Yahweh’s favor (43:10, 12; 44:8), proving that Yahweh alone is God (43:10). At the center of His defense…

September 17, 2012

Un-Angry God

Patrick Coleman notes in his Anger, Gratitude, and the Enlightenment Writer (pp. 9-10) that early Enlightenment writers didn’t necessarily dismiss God. They merely defanged him: “Enlightenment writers were acutely conscious of the ways in which secular as well as ecclesiastical authorities could brandish the image of an angry God to…

September 15, 2012
Politics

Limited government

Locke ( Two Treatises of Government ) argues that political authority, because it exists only by the consent of free people, cannot exercise power beyond the purposes for which it was constituted. Because it exists for the protection of property, it cannot have power to take property without consent. He…

September 15, 2012
Biblical Studies

Father and mother

At the beginning of the first of his Two Treatises of Government , John Locke refutes the Scriptural arguments of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha ( Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’ and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) ). Filmer claims that political authority is grounded in paternal authority, and characterizes…

September 15, 2012

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