Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…
The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…
The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…
There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…
Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…
I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…
Showing page 213 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
In Exodus 12:2, Yahweh tells Moses that the month of Abib, the month of Exodus, will be the first month in Israel’s calendar. Israel gets a new time with the Exodus. Yahweh informs Moses using the word “head” or “beginning,” which reaches back to Genesis 1:1. The new time of…
In his 1974 book, The Fall of Public Man , Richard Sennett writes, “The reigning belief today is that closeness between persons is a moral good. The reigning aspiration today is to develop individual personality through experiences of closeness and warmth with others. The reigning myth today is that the…
Culler writes: “because the sign is arbitrary, because it is the result of dividing a continuum in ways peculiar to the language to which it belongs, we cannot treat the sign as an autonomous entity but must see it as part of a system. It is not just that in…
Culler points out that there are both paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations at every level of language. Nouns combine with prefixes and suffixes, and the possible syntagmatic combinations help to define the noun: “A noun is partly defined by the combinations into which it can enter with prefixes and suffixes.” Friend…
I have the suspicion that Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of signs depends on a political theory - namely, some form of social contract theory that posits a pre-social state of nature. Saussure seems correct that signs are arbitrary if we imagine some Adam formulating language de novo . To…
In response to my post on Calvin and the de-centered self, reader Eric Enlow of Handong International Law School in Pohang, Korea, writes: “I liked your post on the de-centered self; I couldn’t agree any more with the central argument. “My own sense, however, is that if Calvin deemphasizes a…
Showing page 1536 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
