Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…
At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…
We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…
Sandra Jacobs's The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…
Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…
Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…
Showing page 171 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
Stephen Mansfield remembers what Kurdistan was like in the early 1990s: “To be among the Kurds in the northern Iraq of those days was to be in the middle of a civil war while the troops of a tyrant amassed on a nearby border. Economic sanctions added to the general…
Rejoice when you are persecuted, Jesus tells His disciples, “for in the same way they persecuted ( dioko ) the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10-12). Which prophets were those? The only prophet to speak directly of being persecuted is Jeremiah, who prays that those who persecute (LXX dioko…
Responding to a recent post on superheroes, a friend pointed me to this , where Betsy Phillips points out that Superman was invented by two Jews and modeled on Moses. Phillips writes: “Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster weren’t patterning Superman after Jesus. They were patterning him after Moses. A woman…
Haydn White argued that historical writing was disciplined as it moved from the sublime to the beautiful. As a result, modern historical writing is “domesticated” as it strips away all the tropes that lend themselves to the strange and terrifying possibilities of the sublime. In History and Tropology (15-16) F.…
Cherubim have four faces, similar to four creatures: ox, lion, eagle, man. In two passages in Daniel, all of these faces become faces of Babylon. When he falls from reason, Nebuchadnezzar pastures in the field like cattle, and his hair grows like eagle feathers (4:33). Three out of four: He…
At Politico , Nick Spencer argues that the possibility of atheism in the modern world, and the relative weakness of atheism in America, has less to do with science than with politics. Spencer writes, “‘Science’ - if we can treat that collection of disparate disciplines as one single, coherent enterprise…
Showing page 552 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
