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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Anxiety

Viral Anxiety Requires Infectious Wisdom

At the time I write this, many in the United States are under some kind of “lock-down” order. But, thanks to the internet, people are still able to communicate with each other. And people have differing opinions on which medical or scientific projection about our current pandemic is most likely…

by Mark HorneApril 21, 2020
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Gospels

Shall We Receive Good From God, But Not Calamity?

So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal…

by Jeff MeyersApril 14, 2020
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Family

A Family Liturgy

Throughout the world, pastors and leaders are making sometimes excruciating decisions about whether or not to hold public worship services during the coronavirus pandemic and, if so, how. We at Theopolis encourage you to find creative, safe, reasonable, and submissive ways to meet in person with other believers. For many,…

by Peter LeithartApril 8, 2020
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Covenant

Zion as an Ascension

An excerpt from The End of Israel: Jesus, Paul & AD70 by Michael Bull The Hebrew word olah, translated “whole burnt offering” literally means “go up.” The explanatory “translation” is helpful in its description of the offering but unfortunately for English readers it veils the symbolic meaning. As far as…

by Mike BullApril 7, 2020
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Coronavirus

Worship in Exile

The # Coronavirus is trending more frequently than your favorite five celebrities put together. Our culture has exchanged TMZ stories for the primacy of the geeks who once made their living in the privacy of their laboratory. These are now our modern-day celebrities. It’s safe to say the experts surrounding…

by Uri BritoMarch 31, 2020
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Baptism

A Baptism Letter

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, Lord, and Friend. Dear sister in Christ, Your baptism is firm and certain not because of anything you have done or the pastor who administered your baptism in Christ’s stead and command. Your baptism is firm and certain because of God and…

by Todd HainsMarch 26, 2020

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Literature

Living in fictions

In a discussion of King Lear , David Bevington suggests that Edgar saves his father at the cliffs of Dover by constructing a cosmology in which the gods are merciful and perform miracles: “Edgar stages his fiction in this particular way because he knows his father well enough to realize…

December 27, 2006
Literature

Tyranny of gratitude

Many of Shakespeare’s plays explore the moral and political consequences of ingratitude, but Shakespeare is also cognizant of the tyrannical uses to which the demand for gratitude may be put. Lear is certainly about ingratitude, the “marble-hearted fiend” that infects and distorts the monsters of ingratitude Goneril and Regan, as…

December 27, 2006
Theology

In praise of Pietism

Friedrich Oetinger was a leading German pietist intellectual and theologian, deeply interested in the science of his day. And critical of science and rationalist philosophy as well. Against thinkers who placed a primacy on reason, Oetinger argued that sheer logical clarity is insufficient “for living knowledge.” Living knowledge takes form…

December 26, 2006

Communion in humor

I tell a joke, and you get it. I include a veiled allusion to, say, Faust in a casual conversation; you catch it; and we exchange a mental wink. Humor provides a pathway into the hermeneutics of texts and communication. It also seems to provide a pathway into the sociology…

December 26, 2006

Keeping in mind

Gadamer notes the ambiguity of “keeping something in mind.” We sometimes hold something in our mental “gaze” in order to knock into it head on. We watch it carefully until we can grab it. But keeping in mind can also be a form of forgetfulness. We might also keep something…

December 26, 2006
History

Mysticism and culture

Gadamer notes that the concept of Bildung (culture) has its origins in medieval and baroque mysticism, and continues to carry a mystical connotation when it begins to be used of the cultivated humanness. Von Humboldt, for instance, says “when in our language we say Bildung, we mean something both higher…

December 26, 2006

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