Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
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According to Norman Kemp Smith ( Problems in the Cartesian Philosophy ), “The great achievement of Galileo and Descartes in physical science consisted in a new theory of motion. Whereas by the Greek Atomists and by Aristotle motion was anthropomorphically conceived, as, like human activity, coming into being, exhausting itself…
Richard II is often cited as Shakespeare's prime example of a divine-right king, a king by ceremony, the paragon of sacramental kingship. His play depicts the unraveling of medieval kingship and the formation of a new basis for politics. As Alexander Leggatt ( Shakespeare's Political Drama ) argues, however, the…
MD Goulder argues that death and resurrection is the narrative pattern of Acts ( Type and History in Acts ). In most cases, there is no actual death. There is near-death, and then deliverance: “The apostolic college, Peter, Paul, in turn go down to the pit: and from the pit…
Paul Cantor ( Shakespeare's Rome ) argues that Shakespeare wrote Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra as companion plays, marking the birth of the Republic and its decadent decline in the early empire. As evidence, he points to overlapping themes and literary features, and notes that there is a political and…
Descartes's early critics had many qualms about his new philosophy, but for theological critics the central question was how to square his views with the dogma of transubstantiation. Descartes claimed to be a faithful Roman Catholic, but philosophically he was opposed to the hylomorphic theory of matter on which traditional…
MD Goulder ( Type and History in Acts ) points out that the history recorded in Acts doesn't follow the Jerusalem-Judea-Samaria-ends of earth pattern that Jesus leads us to expect at the beginning of the book: “The four places are being given in their theological order: the holy city, the…
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