Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
Showing page 102 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
After summing up Ong’s work on Ramus, Johannes Fabian ( Time and the Other ) suggests an analogy between Ramist pedagogy and anthropology: “Having learned more about the connections between printing and diagrammatic reduction of the contents of thought, one is tempted to consider the possibility that anthropological kinship theories…
The Pharisaical practice of washing before meals is legally odd (as pointed out by Roger Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity ). The one explicit reference to the need for laymen to wash hands is Leviticus 15:11 doesn’t have to do with food or with victims of uncleanness. Leviticus…
Ernst Lohmeyer ( Lord of the Temple ) argues that Jesus’ saying on defilement in Mark 7 (=Matthew 15) “transfers the whole question of purity from the plant of material externals to that of man’s inner self . . . . there emerges in unmistakable superiority the inner world of…
Matthew 14:22-16:12 is arranged in a chiastic pattern, repeatedly focusing on food but centering on Jesus’ healing ministry: A. Crossing the sea, 14:22-36 B. Pharisees and scribes question Jesus about washing before meals, 15:1-20 C. Jesus gives crumbs to the Canaanite woman, 15:21-29 D. Jesus heals the multitudes, 15:29-31 C’.…
On clear nights, I can see the Milky Way stretching across the sky from my drive way. Since the mid-nineteenth century, fewer and fewer have easy sight of the night sky. In Hong Kong, the buildings stretch and loom so high that the streets below are a cavernous indoor mall,…
Jay notes that the mid-19th century witnessed shift in the setting of “oracularcentric spectacle” from the “aristocratic court” to the “bourgeois equivalent in the massive sheet glass windows [of department stories] displaying a wealth of commodities to be coveted, and, if money allowed, consumed. Here the dandies’ quest to distinguish…
Showing page 1497 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
