Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Since Theopolis began in 2013, we have been aiming for the fall of 2016 as the launch date for our year-long Fellows Program. As it turned out, we had only a handful of applicants, most withdrew for one reason or another (none for lack of interest), and we are left…
Charles Spurgeon once quipped, “If you give a man the gospel, wrap it in a sandwich. And if you give a man a sandwich, wrap it in the gospel.” With those words, the great Baptist preacher captured the essence of the church’s mission in the world. The church’s mission is…
This is a continuation of a previous essay by Lindsey Tollefson . 6. We own everything . Sometimes the biggest thing that is keeping us discontent is because we are not happy with what we have been given in material possessions. Especially in the United States it is so easy…
Proverbs 3:1-12 form a section marked off by the reference to the father-son relationship at the beginning and end (vv. 1, 12). Within this section, Solomon gives a series of six commands to his son (vv. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11), the first and the last (vv. 1, 11)…
A letter from Theopolis President Peter Leithart as our fiscal year draws to an end . Dear Friend of Theopolis: It was one of those moments when you realize that other people understand you better than you understand yourself. I was having lunch with a pastor friend at a BJ’s…
Learning to be content and completely satisfied in Christ is certainly a life-long process and a lesson that we are always learning, and always being tested on. As I am learning and wrestling against discontent, I am always looking for practical and tangible ways to set my course towards joy…
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In John’s gospel, Jesus famously says “I am” again and again. These allude to the Old Testament’s revelation of “I am,” but if we can press the wording, they are also statements about the being of Jesus. Let’s say they are ontological statements. The predicate, though, describes Jesus’ ministry in…
There are some dreams and visions scattered around the Old Testament, but no book as the kind of concentration of dreams as Daniel. Kings dream, and the prophet dreams. In Esther too, the dream of Ahasuerus is the turning point of the story. Zechariah sees a series of visions in…
Salvian the Presbytery was not impressed with the post-Constantinian Roman empire. In his treatise on The Governance of God (translated in Writings of Salvian the Presbyter F ), he denounced the vices of the majority of believers: “The Church herself, which should be the appeaser of God in all things,…
The social vision of Paul’s “Pastoral Epistles” seems so very conservative, so Greco-Romany bourgeois. They seem far too conservative to be genuinely Pauline, according to the consensus view among critical scholars. That reading of the Pastorals is somewhat plausible if one skims the surface. Paul reinforces accepted male-female role distinctions,…
When we read Jonah, our attention is naturally focused on the fascinating character of the prophet. He disobeys and flees, only to be cast a watery grave. He learns his lesson enough to obey the next time, but he’s awfully surly at the end about the withered plant. Insofar as…
When Habakkuk complains that the Lord isn’t doing anything about the violence and flouting of the law in Israel, Yahweh responds by telling the prophet the Chaldeans are coming. That’s not much of an answer, but there’s a hint that the Chaldean forces are from Yahweh: In verse 1:8, the…
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