Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We are too used to reading the Gospels’ stories of Jesus’ arrest, trial, condemnation, and death from a devotional perspective and so we miss a lot of what’s going on. We actually have a difficult time trying to figure out the meaning of the details of the story. Of course,…
This is the first in a series of essays on "Continuing the Reformation." Many different churches descend from the original Protestant Reformation, and those that are the most conservative are often insistent that they are largely if not completely true to the Reformation, or to the branch from which they…
Trinity House fellow James B. Jordan will be teaching a one-day seminar on "How to Read the Bible for the First Time . . . Again" next Friday, February 22, in North London. The event is sponsored by Emmanuel Evangelical Church, Southgate, costs 20 pounds (10 for theology students) and…
Audio Reading of this Post https://theopolis-blogcast.simplecast.com/episodes/a-primer-on-ash-wednesday What is Ash Wednesday? Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a season focused on the sufferings and cross of Jesus. But Jesus’ death on the cross cannot be separated from the cross we are called to bear in union with him, so…
Welcome to the Trinity House web site. It’s unfinished, as you’ll soon discover, but it’s more finished than it was, and for that we are very grateful. Thanks to David Dalbey for the design, and to my son Sheffield for the execution. Trinity House exists to advance the reformation of…
In our I hope brief blog-versation, Doug Wilson has posted a couple more things to think about. In one he asks who our father/Father is. We either have God or the devil as our father. Well, yes and no. I’m with Doug in what he’s getting at, I think, but…
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Yoder argues that from the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Jews developed a proto-“free church” model of community life. True in some respects. Jews didn’t have their own polity. But I’ve got doubts if that’s a fair characterization of Jews in and after the exile. Why? The Bible for…
Maximilian of Tebessa is often cited as an example of early Christian pacifism. When Roman officials pressured him to accept a military seal and swear the sacramentum by reminding him that other Christians served without qualms, he still refued, saying “They know what is expedient for them; but I am…
Warwick Ball’s Rome in the East is a treasure trove. Instead of telling the story of Rome from an occidental standpoint, he goes east and looks back. What does Roman history look like from Arabia, Syria, Edessa, India? One of his remarkable conclusions is that before the triumph of the…
In reaction to the lax respectability of the majority church, many hardy souls retreated to the desert or the frontier. So the story goes. Only the monastery was another form of cultural conformity. RA Markus ( The End of Ancient Christianity ) says that “the ideal of the philosophical life…
Florence Dupont points out in her Daily Life in Ancient Rome that in Latin enemy ( hostis ) andguest ( hospes ) “were formed from the same root, which had the meaning ‘the other who is similar to you.’”
In her study of Roman gladiatorial combat and arenas ( Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power ) Alison Futrell describes the Phoenician practice of human sacrifice transplanted to Carthage: “The young victim was placed in the arms of the bronze image of Ba’al Hammon, arms that sloped…
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