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Advent

Advent and Christmas Music Recommendations

Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…

by John Ahern and Paul BuckleyDecember 23, 2020
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Advent

Between the Altar and the City: Isaiah 65:17-25

In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…

by Casey BedellDecember 22, 2020
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Advent

Why We're the Real Seventh Day Adventists

The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…

by Jerry BowyerDecember 18, 2020
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Biblical Studies

Psalm 23: A Lesson in Reading Biblical Poetry

Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…

by Ryan HandermannDecember 15, 2020
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Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 17 and the Separation of Powers

In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…

by James R. RogersDecember 11, 2020
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Advent

Zechariah and John: A Story in Names

A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…

by Rhys LavertyDecember 8, 2020

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Man Must Teach

Rosenstock-Huessy’s essay “Man Must Teach” begins as an analysis of Augustine’s dialogue with his son Adeodatus, the De Magistro , and then broadens out to a treatment of teaching as a paradigmatic social relation, as well as a treatment of the social construction of time. One of the key moves…

October 19, 2015

Tradition and the Theological Virtues

“There is a subtle intrigue going on between the generations,” writes Otto Kroesen in Planetary Responsibilities (120). “It is an intrigue of separating from, and inheriting, and convincing, and letting go of each other.” The recurring question is “whether only one generation can be the owner of the truth and…

October 19, 2015

Showing

The verb deiknuo , “show,” is used eight times in Revelation. Four of the uses are at the seams of the book, at the beginning of each new in-Spirit vision: 1. Jesus has been given to show John what must shortly take place (1:1). 2. When John sees a door…

October 19, 2015

Tradition and the Spirit

As long as the apostles were alive, writes Robert Jenson, churches could check their understanding of the gospel by asking the living apostles: “Is this the gospel?” Once they died, the church needed something to mediate the apostolic witness: “her self-identity as the church of the apostles would not be…

October 19, 2015

The Happening

Revelation begins (1:1, 19) with the announcement that God showed His bondservants what will soon “happen” or “become” ( ginomai ). It ends on the same note (22:6). What is it that happens? Judging from the scattered twenty-six uses of the verb ginomai , the happening that God unveils is…

October 16, 2015

Circles from the Sky

When the seventh bowl is poured out on the air, the world collapses. The throne of God comes to earth, flashing and thundering and shaking the earth until everything that cannot stand collapses. Cities fall, islands run away, mountains disappear. And hailstones weighing a talent ( talantiaia ) fall to…

October 16, 2015

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