Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory...(John 1:14) Commentaries on John, discussing the Word or Logos in John 1, routinely turn to Greek philosophy and say that John is using a term and at least part of an idea familiar in the ancient…
Jeremiah Burroughs defines contentment as “that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition” Contentment is one Christian virtue that Americans have an incredibly hard time understanding and applying. We have such comfortable lives that we…
"The goal I have for myself, my family, and my church is total bible saturation. I expected the Exodus Intensive class to help me with that, but I am shocked just how much it did," said Mark Balthrop, a pastor in Oklahoma City who attended Theopolis' recent course on the…
In a characteristically pithy essay, Robert Jenson has decried the “two paired errors” of traditional atonement theory. On the one hand, the cross is separated “from its future, in the resurrection” and, on the other, from “its past in the canonical history of Israel.” For the apostles, crucifixion is “anything…
The Historical-Grammatical Nanny State Typological interpretation is either abused or frowned upon, a domain relegated to mystics and charlatans, where the angels of modern academia fear to tread. But what if the Bible itself contained safeguards against irresponsible flights of fancy? And if it did, what would they look like?…
It is harsh advice for a suffering soul to be told to be content, to be happy, to be delighting in the rough circumstances. Is Christian contentment something we should automatically have as a result of being in Christ? Is it something we do? Is it an action or is…
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Ancient Greeks sacrificed and ate pigs and dogs. Israelites were forbidden to do so. Ancient Greeks made blood pudding from sacrifices. Israelites were not supposed to eat blood. Ancient Greeks sometimes sacrificed pregnant sows. Israelites were commanded not to take both the eggs and the hen. Greek sacrificial goats were…
Was sacrificial meat distributed equally or hierarchically in ancient Greece? Some have resolved the question diachronically: Archaic Greece had a more democratic sacrificial distribution that democratic classical Athens. Gunnel Ekroth concludes that the two systems lived side-by-side. Choice pieces were given to dignitaries and priests, but the bulk of the…
Jesus charges the Laodicean angel with being lukewarm, neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3). This is understandably and rightly taken as a symbol of their indecisiveness and lethargic piety. But there’s a whole lot more going on. Hot and cold match day and night (Genesis 8:22). “Heat of the day”…
A few scattered thoughts on 1 Samuel 17. Saul offers David his armor for battle, but David refuses (v. 39). After the battle, though, David accepts the armor of Jonathan, signifying David’s elevation to crown prince (18:1-4). David kills Goliath with a rock, trusting in Yahweh the Rock. There is…
By the time a child is two, he or she has developed “narrative” memory, the ability to “store” and recall events in story form. This is essential to the development of thought and self-reflection, but it is, Daniel Siegel argues, a shared, social process ( The Developing Mind , 60-1),…
Millennials aren’t apathetic or lazy, argues Zachary Fine in the NYT . They are simply paralyzed, and pluralism is one of the causes. “The art critic Craig Owens once wrote that pluralism is not a ‘recognition, but a reduction of difference to absolute indifference, equivalence, interchangeability.’ Some millennials who were…
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