Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Flying scrolls. Red horses. Beasts coming out of the sea. Winged women. The list goes on. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is like a cross between science fiction and Marvel comics. And the Bible has a fair bit of this sort of thing. Daniel sees visions in Babylon, Zechariah sees…
Trinity House Institute has taken a new name, the Theopolis Institute. This striking new name expresses our unique vision and mission and captures the unified purpose behind all our specific programs and activities. We still have Bible, liturgy, and culture in our tagline. We still offer the same courses on…
Adam Kotsko offers a socio-political variation on the Christus Victor atonement theory in his 2010 study, The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation . He does this by explaining "the devil" in terms of the Hegelian concept of "objective spirit," Geist . As Kotsko puts it, Geist "refers…
Two factors keep Nahtali Meshel from discussing the meaning of sacrifice until late in his The "Grammar" of Sacrifice . The first has to do with the texts he draws from: "P says little about the meaning of its rituals" (174). The other has to do with the grammatical theory…
Chapter 5 of Naphtali Meshel's The "Grammar" of Sacrifice focuses on "praxemics," the physical actions of sacrificial ritual. Praxemes are constituted by six elements: an "atomact," an elementary physical act or gesture; an actor; an object that is acted up; a target for the action and often for the object…
Two chapters of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice cover what he calls “jugation” and “hierarchies.” The first involves the addition of other materials to an animal offering. Jugates include wine, cereal, and oil that are added to the animals (zoemes) that are offered in sacrifice. Some jugates are coordinated…
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Why did the Reformation happen? Luther once said, “God threw the cards on the table and refused to play the game any longer.”
Some good friends, who happen to agree with the substance of my arguments about vulgar speech, suggested that the arguments would be more effective if I didn’t use the obscenities in their full form in the post. I have made the suggested changes on the previous post “On Vulgar Language”…
Victor Wilson points out that the story of Jesus and the woman at the well is arranged in a series of six exchanges between Jesus as the woman (vv. 7b-9; 10-12; 13-15; 16-17a; 17b-20; 21-25), and ends with Jesus speaking and the woman answering by action instead of words (26-27).…
I have been taken to task elsewhere on the web for a few posts on my site that included obscene and vulgar words. It’s been argued that my posts violate biblical standards for speech and writing. That’s the issue I want to address in this post. One of the most…
Here is another older piece, first published in the Chalcedon Report in 1988 (hence the dated bibliography and references), on the question of how Christians should talk about sex. Part of the point is that even non-obscene terms can be used in ways that undermine Christian sexual morals. Asterisking f-words…
INTRODUCTION John is a true apostolic pastor. His letters address the universal church (1 John), a particular congregation, the “chosen Lady” (2 John), and an individual Christian, Gaius (3 John). 3 John is full of names: Gaius (v. 1), Diotrephes (v. 9), Demetrius (v. 12). John is not content with…
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