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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Music

The Case for Shorter Hymnals

I believe hymnals should be shorter than they are. Much shorter. 100 hymns at most, let’s say. I imagine that this will be a hard one to swallow for most of my readers, so I will attempt to bolster my argument as best I can. I can’t think of any…

by John AhernNovember 16, 2021
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Hermeneutics

King Joshua and the Christian

Joshua is never called a king in the Bible. Yet while lacking the title, Joshua possesses the trappings of biblical kingship to a degree that it seems warranted to consider him a royal figure. There are lots of reasons for thinking this. In a 1981 Journal of Biblical Literature article,…

by Daniel HoffmanNovember 9, 2021
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Language

The Liturgy of Language

God speaks. He is not silent. He has designed humanity for reception of such communication and also to speak on His behalf. This speaking is not simply happenstance. It is not just a curious quirk about humanity. It is intrinsic to who we are that we speak and shape the…

by Chase DavisNovember 2, 2021
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Practicing Repentance

One evening, years ago, home from college for Christmas break, I dreamt that I was playing the piano, passionately and well, in the church sanctuary beneath the parsonage in the renovated mansion in rural New Hampshire where my father was the minister. It was something of a lucid dream because…

by Garrett SoucyOctober 26, 2021
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Anxiety

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

I’m a big worrier. Always have been. Some of my earliest memories are of being anxious to the point of getting sick, sometimes for trivial reasons. My mind moves a million miles a minute, wondering what will happen in 5 minutes, or tomorrow, or next week, or in ten years.…

by MargaretAnn HesterOctober 21, 2021
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Biblical Studies

“But Lot’s Wife Behind Him”: Translating a Conjunction in the Sodom Story

“The sun had gone up on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. And the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD from heaven, and he devastated those cities and the whole valley and all those dwelling in the cities and the growth of…

by Josh JensenOctober 19, 2021

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Empty Vestments

John's description of the harlot city (Revelation 17:4-5) that he sees in the wilderness is written in four clauses: She is clothed; she is gilded; she holds something in her hand; and she has a name on her forehead. These four clauses describe seven pieces of the harlot's attire and…

October 21, 2015

Love, Law, and Wrath

Robert Jenson grasps the attractions of antinomianism: “perhaps only on the edge of antinomianism does the true bite of the gospel appear” ( Ezekiel , 62). Yet Christians must stop short of the edge, because “falling over that edge is . . . the disaster of faith.” This is not…

October 21, 2015
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The Soul of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

When I published some articles on the German-American philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973) on the web a decade or more ago, I received an email from Norman Fiering, Director and Librarian Emeritus of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. A student of Rosenstock-Huessy’s at Dartmouth College during the 1950s,…

October 20, 2015

Apocalyptic Porn

The verb porneuo and noun porneia are prominent themes in Revelation. Two of the seven churches of Asia are warned about factions that commit acts of immorality (2:14, 20), and the great harlot Babylon fornicates with the kings of the earth (17:2; 18:3, 9). The noun form, porneia , appears…

October 20, 2015

Against the “Hebrew Bible”

Not surprisingly, Robert Jenson spends a lot of time in his Brazos commentary on Ezekiel talking about Trinity and Christology and other topics that biblical scholars would tell him do not appear in Ezekiel's prophecy. He knows that his method will offend “the modern exegetical academy's chief dogma,” namely, the…

October 20, 2015

Violence and the End

“Eschatology and violence are intrinsically connected,” writer Robert Jenson ( Ezekiel , 76). So much the worse for eschatology, one might say. It needs to be purged from Scripture and theology. The problem, Jenson says, is that when we purge the violence, “nothing is left” (76, fn 5). The violence…

October 20, 2015

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