Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When I wrote my commentary on Ecclesiastes A Table in the Mist I took Eccl. 11:1-2 as a reference to the risk of international trade. It sure did seem to me like a reference to Solomon’s risky trade with other nations. Israel exported grain (bread) and Solomon’s ships returned to…
When we read an alphabetical psalm in English, we miss the fact that each verse begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I have found one way to get around this, which is for the leader to announce something relevant about each letter before reading his half of…
How does the Lord’s Supper proclaim the death of Jesus until He comes? (1 Corinthians 11:26). Historically, liturgists have attempted to locate some act in the rite of the Supper that corresponds to the death of Jesus: the fraction (breaking of bread), or the fact that bread and wine are…
These notes are posted here by request. We all now live in the age of slob worship thanks to the “sixties.” I never experienced sitting for prayer until 20 years ago. Jesus was unhappy when His disciples could not watch and pray for one hour. Today’s slob Christians complain if…
On September 11, 2001, Jesus brought judgment upon the United States of America. Following His normal procedure, He used an even more evil force to do it (Habakkuk 1-3). The warning Jesus gives throughout the Bible to those He uses to punish others is that they need to repent, or…
Because of Donald Trump, the “Birther” issue is heating up. It is not going away, and is only part of a larger cluster of issues in regard to the President. Virtually all of the relevant documents concerning who he is and where he has been, have been suppressed, at great…
Showing page 204 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
Four angels at the four corners of the land hold back the winds that destroy (Revelation 7:1-3). Altars have corners, and at each corner is a “horn” that “stands” at attention. In the purification offering, blood is smeared on the four horns of the altar, turning the altar into a…
In a National Geographic interview , Marcus Rediker explains how ships provided the setting for developing some of the distinctive institutions and ideas of the modern world: “Large northern European seagoing vessels, which emerge in the 16th and 17th centuries, become by the 18th century the most important technology in…
Shakespeare’s Richard III is a black-hearted hunchbacked murderer. But there has been another legend of Richard III, as a gallant ruler, the victim of Tudor propaganda. Over the past century, the white legend has often prevailed over the black. Desmond Seward’s Richard III is mostly black, and that’s because he…
When John ascends to heaven, he sees four ( tessares ) living creatures, and in the scene in heaven they are mentioned five times (4:6, 8; 5:6, 8, 14). Then the Lamb begins to open the seals, and the four living creatures cry out. The sixth seal reveals four angels…
This is an addendum to my reflections on wings a few weeks ago. Israel is sometimes conceived as a four-cornered land (Ezekiel 7:2), modeled after the four-cornered altar (Exodus 27:2; 38:2) or a four-cornered house (Job 1:19). Israelites are priests; their land is an altar where they make their daily,…
Several factors need to be put back into the standard account of the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, says Robert Hoyland in his forthcoming In God’s Path . The first is process. Speed plays such a large role in the standard accounts that we miss the variability,…
Showing page 538 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
