Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a February blog post for the Theopolis Institute, Benoît Engel offers a thought-provoking challenge to the widely accepted five-discourse structure of Matthew’s Gospel, proposing a sixth discourse in Matthew 21:28–22:14 to reframe the Gospel’s chiastic center. As someone deeply invested in Matthew’s literary design—explored in my book Reading Matthew,…
Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9 Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.…
Theopolis publishes many polemics, especially on the Sacraments. This piece does not necessarily reflect the views of Theopolis, her board, or her editors. -JW Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the…
There is in the United States and the Western World some sort of religious revival occurring. Gen Z men—males born between ca 1997 and 2012—are flooding back in to churches. USA Today noted that Gen Z men—and to a lesser degree women—attending churches more than their millennial predecessors and they…
The primary task of many Biblical scholars (as they see it) is to explain how and why the Biblical text acquired its final form—i.e., what source material it used, how that material was expanded/redacted, who expanded/redacted it, why they did so, what the weather was like at the time, etc.…
Galatians 5:5-15 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from…
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PROVERBS 28:4 Law ( torah ) is mentioned about a dozen times in Proverbs.  Most of the uses refer to the torah of a mother (1:8) or a father (3:1), and in these uses the emphasis is on the fact that torah is “instruction” rather than strictly “law” in our…
Discussing Barth’s distinction of the “church of Esau” and the “church of Jacob” in the Romerbrief , Michael Horton ( People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology ) gets Barth’s weaknesses exactly right.  First, “Barth seems to assume that ‘secularity’ is neutral, objective, descriptive science” and second “Barth can only place…
Kinneging points out the ambiguous relationship that traditional conservatism has often had with the market: “No conservative will deny that a system of mutual provision of services, based on a range of evil affects residing within man - which are further inflamed by the unrestricted operation of that system -…
In The Geography of Good and Evil: Philosophical Investigations (Crosscurrents) , Dutch philosopher Andreas Kinneging argues that the conservative objection to the Enlightenment is not only intellectual but has to do with the will: “It is the view of conation that characterizes conservatism more than anything else.”  That view is…
The eternal Word, being proper to the Father’s being, cannot advance.  Yet, Scripture says that Jesus advances in wisdom and stature.  Athanasius appeals to the incarnation: He is advancing humanly.  But, as always, what the Word does in the flesh is done for us: “Neither then was the advance the Word’s,…
Peter describes women as “weaker vessels” (1 Pet 3:7).  That sounds like an insult.  Is it? First, vessels in Scripture are almost always temple vessels, implements of temple worship.  Hebrew 9:21 is one of the NT passages that uses the word in this specific sense.  Other uses in the NT…
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