Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…
Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…
In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…
For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…
How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…
Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…
Showing page 94 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
Many Protestants still think of the Catholic church as a monolithic, uniform church. It’s been a long time since Catholics have thought of the church that way. Aloys Grillmeier sums up the results of Vatican II’s embrace of communio ecclesiology: “catholicity is understood as a union of opposites. The people…
Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never occur to any human being.” Prominent among unknowables are the unknowables of science. Given the way scientific research and discovery work, it is impossible for present science to…
Heaven, earth, sea: That three-decker universe is standard-issue in biblical cosmology (Exodus 20:11; Psalm 69:34; 96:11; 135:6; 146:6; Revelation 10:6). Occasionally a second heaven is added to the scheme (Nehemiah 9:6). But when the Lamb ascends to take the book, praise arises from four dimensions of creation: heaven, earth, under…
Thomas Guarino ( Vincent of Lerins ) outlines Newman’s arguments against the Vincentian canon (orthodoxy is what is taught always, everywhere, by everyone). In his Essay on Development , Newman provides historical examples “to demonstrate that the first rule is, at beast, a leaky and dubious criterion. As Newman boldly…
In his preface to Receptive Ecumenism , Paul Murray explains that the “driving assumption is that if all were to be asking and acting upon this question, even relatively independently of each other, then all would be moving, albeit somewhat unpredictably, and in such a fashion as might open up…
As Avery Dulles recounts it in The Catholicity of the Church , the reforms of Vatican II came partly from what Paul Murray calls “ receptive ecumenism ,” an ecumenism of attentive listening to the other. Dulles wasn’t exactly a receptive ecumenist himself. While acknowledging that “the Church can certainly…
Showing page 603 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
