Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"The faithful use of sacraments, and indeed a fully sacramental view of creation, is vital to the life of the Church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites that directly shape the community and the Body, because they were given by God for that express purpose. A deficient practice of…
Weightlessness is fun. At the beginning of Gravity (2013) , we can see one astronaut dancing the Macarena and another one playing with his jetpack. They like it out there in the space. Apart from zero-gravity they can enjoy beautiful views, and even the silence is likable, although Matt Kowalski…
I recently went to a lunch that is more or less quarterly. About a dozen of us go. It is a lunch held in honor of a retired professor of religion and philosophy. I have been one of his acquaintances for more than 40 years. In his tenure as professor,…
Why Theopolis? Don't we already have seminaries and Bible colleges and other institutions for theological education? Why do we need another one? I get this question now and again. I ask myself this question even more often. What follows is a partial answer. Back in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to…
I think the logic of the Lutheran Reformation can be summarized in one sentence, attributed to Luther himself: "God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does." The first half of that statement is justification by faith . God doesn't need our works to satisfy his justice or…
If you are looking to start a fight with Christians, there is hardly a better subject to do so than the arts. Music, movies, paintings, and literature have provided no small battlegrounds for Christians to war. We are emotionally invested in the arts. A song, a book, or a film…
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Matthew 19: What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder. This is the marriage supper of the lamb. Here at this table, Jesus our Lord and Husband, our Lordly Husband, meets with us to communion with us, and gives Himself to us. At this table, we are…
Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water by the word. We’ve been talking this morning about the permanence of marriage and about divorce, and this…
Jesus deals with divorce and remarriage, but His central teaching about marriage is that “From the beginning it was not so.” His point is not mainly to narrow the escape route from marriage. He commands husbands and wives to live together in a way that prevents divorce from ever arising…
Strangely, Paul says in Ephesians 5:13 that “everything that becomes visible is light.” Whatever could that mean? Hamann thought he knew: “Imagery comprises the entire realm of human knowledge and happiness. The first explosion of creation, and the first impression of its historian; the first manifestation and the first enjoyment…
Rosenstock-Huessy finds himself “hurt, swayed, shaken, elated, disillusioned, shocked, comforted,” and incapable of refraining from speech: “To write a book is no luxury. It is a means of survival.” Behind Rosenstock-Huessy stands Hamann, and behind Hamann is Elihu of the book of Job, whose words Hamann uses as the epigram…
Our obsessiveness about exercise and health seems supremely anti-gnostic. But the opposite is the case. Consider the imagery: “Buns of steel” and “Abs of iron” and “Cable-like biceps.” The bodybuilder aims to exercise himself to robothood. His goal to exercise until he’s elevated to a state beyond human. He wants…
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