Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27 In an ever-increasing barrage of self-obsession and tailor-made realities, how does the Christian navigate the waters of being someone who experiences life in the first person…
American church music is in a slump. To get out of the slump, we need a 10-year plan, a 50-year plan, and a 100-year plan. Many are doing extraordinary work on reforming church music in the near-term, and a few in the mid-term. What is desperately needed is the 100-year…
The following is an excerpt from The Maker Versus the Takers: What Jesus Really Said About Social Justice and Economics ¸ by Jerry Bowyer (New York, Fidelis Books, Post Hill Press, 2020), release date Sept. 15 th . The section below argues that the ‘Rich Man’ in the parable refers…
Could Absalom be a Christ-type? If you know much about the Bible, you likely have an immediate aversion to even the possibility of answering this question in the affirmative. Absalom was third among David’s sons, while Amnon—his brother from another mother—was first (2 Sam. 3:2-3). As Absalom’s story begins, it…
All four Gospels not only associate Barabbas and Jesus quite unabashedly, they do so emphatically and with a deep theological message. The scene is well-known. In His trial before Pontius Pilate, though Jesus had been declared innocent more than once, there seemed to be no hope of releasing Him. Pilate…
The Theopolis Institute is pleased to announce the second round of the James B. Jordan Prize to honor outstanding doctoral dissertations in biblical theology. James Jordan is one of the most insightful biblical scholars of our time. The Jordan Prize exists to encourage more of the deep Scriptural investigation of…
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Alec Ryrie portrays what it meant to be an early Protestant in his Being Protestant in Reformation Britain . As the TLS reviewer points out, this is no longer a fashionable question: “Historians of the early Reformation now prefer to use the term ‘evangelicals,’ in recognition of the fact that…
Greeks expressed their gratitude, FS Naiden notes ( Smoke Signals for the Gods ), with sacrifice: “Helliodorus, hellenizing his Phoenicians, says that Tyrians used such a formula after one of their number won at the Pythian games. Returning home with the victor, they sacrificed at the seaside, niketerion and charisterion,…
Many classicists suggest that Greek sacrifice was mechanical and automatic. One of the burdens of Naiden’s Smoke Signals for the Gods is to show otherwise. Sacrifices were only acceptable to the gods if the worshiper was ritually and morally pure. Naiden quoted Antiphon: “Many people with unclean hands or some…
Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for works, toil, and perseverance, for their rigorous testing of pretended apostles (Revelation 2:2-3). But then He lodges a stunning charge: They have left their first love ( ten agapen sou ten proten aphekes ). What does that mean? Agape in the New Testament…
When John sees Jesus in glory (Revelation 1:9-20), he describes him from head to toe and back (vv. 14-16). It’s a wasf , a blazon, like the descriptions of the Song of Songs. Jesus is the Lover, and He commissions John as His amanuensis to write love letters to His…
The translation of the name Yahweh into Greek as ho on , “the One who is,” has been seen as a Platonizing or Hellenizing move. Sean McDonough ( YHWH at Patmos , 194) demurs: “God’s declaration of his name, ‘I am who I am,’ served as a natural bridge between…
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