Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…
At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…
We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…
Sandra Jacobs's The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…
Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…
Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…
Showing page 171 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
H.A. Drake’s Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Ancient Society and History) is a remarkable piece of work. One of his opening moves is to show how, despite clear and overt differences, both Burckhardt’s pure-political Constantine and Baynes’s sincere-Christian Constantine share common assumptions about politics and religion. He…
Niebuhr has this nice harmonization of the Matthean and Lukan beatitude to the poor: “Both versions are necessary to catch the full flavor of the beatitude. For the Lukan version alone would make poverty a guarantee of virtue, particularly of the virtue of humility, which it is not. The Matthean…
Niebuhr claims that irony is inherent in the Christian view of history: Christianity’s “interpretation of the nature of evil in human history is consistently ironic. This consistency is achieved on the basis of the belief that the whole drama of human history is under the scrutiny of a divine judge…
Niebuhr ( Irony ) quotes an unnamed European statesman who expresses gratitude for America’s help in resisting tyranny, but fear “that we might become an American ally.” America’s idealism doesn’t reassure him: “The idealism does indeed prevent America from a gross abuse of its power. But it might well accentuate…
Charles Maier’s comparative study Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors reaches the waffly but accurate conclusion that the “United States reveals many, but not all - at least not yet - of the traits that distinguished empires.” Early on, he makes the helpful distinction between “being” and “having” an…
Van Dam ( Roman Revolution of Constantine ) suggests that Eusebius’s Life was simultaneously a political tract celebrating the elevation of a Christian emperor and a theological apology promoting Eusebius’s Christological subordinationism. The afterlife of Eusebius’s treatise, though, put the emperors in their place. Rufinus’s translation/paraphrase of Eusebius’s Church History…
Showing page 1377 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
