Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Can it be that it has been two whole years since I contributed a Theopolis Post! I had been pursuing the topic of integration: “Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World.” I had defined “integration,” simply, as creative putting together. I had posed that seeking it calls for a fundamentally integrative…
What is known as the miracle of the “Feeding of the Five Thousand” occurs in Mark’s Gospel in chapter 6. As with other gospel writers, Mark has a few different points to make as he moves through this story (included in all four gospel accounts) and its surrounding material. Three…
To begin with the source of this narrative: Since no human being was present to observe these events, we must assume that this narrative was revealed directly by God to a human author. There are three ways this might have happened. First, we might read, "God said to Abraham (or…
The serious Bible student cannot help but be struck by the deviousness of Jacob in Genesis 27. If one already expected some underhanded dealings from this twin-born-second whose name means “supplanter” and whose bargaining with his brother for the birthright in Genesis 25 seemed incredibly weighted in his own favor,…
From Barna stats to mainstream headlines, it seems as though the discordant nature of this last year has taken such a toll on churches in the United States that, for many, the injuries have been fatal. It has become a regular occurrence to hear about a congregation that continues to…
In The Bad News Bears (1976), a city councilman hires a washed-up minor league baseball player with a drinking problem to coach a little league team of leftover misfits. Underdog sports movies are usually full of sentimentalism and dramatic victories, but this film is a commentary on the failing dream…
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M arjorie Garber ( Shakespeare After All , 300–2) nicely captures the Pauline resonances of the trial scene in Merchant of Venice : “Shylock will provide a scale to weigh the pound of flesh, but not a surgeon to staunch the wound. He will, that is, provide the emblem of…
I n a 1911 article on “The Ant Colony as Organism,” William Morton Wheeler argued that an ant colony was not only organism-like but an actual organism: “Like a cell or the person, it behaves as a unitary whole, maintaining its identity in space, resisting dissolution...neither a thing nor a…
I an Boxall gets a lot right in his commentary on Revelation 6:9–11 (in his excellent The Revelation of Saint John , 113). He knows that the blood of a purification offering is poured out at the base of the altar, the very position where the souls of the martyrs…
W riting in 1888, J. Theodore Bent described a visit to Patmos, during which he read the Apocalypse. One day, he recounted, “I stood by the sea looking south-west, I distinctly saw Thera, as it was anciently called, rising out of the sea. This island is now also called Thera…
Bede ( Latin Commentaries on Revelation , 133-5) interprets the list of Israel's tribes in Revelation 7 by etymologizing the names. The list forms a sequence, from Judah to Benjamin. Judah means “confession or praise” and is placed first because “before the beginning of confession, no one attains the heights…
V iolent malice can be directed against God, the self, and the neighbor, Virgil tells Dante ( Inferno 11) as they huddle under the lid of one of the tombs in the sixth circle of hell. Virgil takes a moment to explain the moral theology that organizes hell. He explicates…
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