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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones

[This essay was originally published in 1988. Given the situation that our new national socialists are getting the world into, I thought it might be useful to reprint it here. – JBJordan] The Bible has quite a bit to say about gold, silver, and precious stones, and the Bible always…

by James B. JordanMay 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

The Pastoral Function

I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it. There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a…

by James B. JordanMay 17, 2009
Biblical Horizons

The Virgin Tomb: The Womb of the New Birth

James Jordan recently pointed out in private conversation how appropriate it is, in John’s Gospel, that Nicodemus is present both to ask Jesus about being born again, and to see Jesus re-enter the womb of the mother. Nicodemus rhetorically asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?…

by Mark HorneMay 8, 2009
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Romans

Romans 7

This is a problematic and much discussed passage. I’ve been discussing it in another forum, and have decided to move it here and present some very preliminary observations about it. One large question is this: Who is the speaker here and what is his situation? Traditionally, the speaker is seen…

by James B. JordanApril 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

Good New Sci-Fi

1. The current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes a good fantasy novella by John C. Wright, who since his conversion has been writing Christianly. This is a fine fantasy with nods to C. S. Lewis and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and probably Gene Wolfe as well.…

by James B. JordanApril 15, 2009
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American Culture

The Name of Jesus

“It is an experience of our days that the spoken name of Jesus alone exercises an unforeseen power; and the effort which it cost to speak this name is perhaps connected to some faint apprehension of the power which is inherent within it. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 20, 2009

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Perilous Partners

Reflecting on President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, Ted Galen Carpenter (co-author of Perilous Partners ) notes that “the Saudi regime abets extremism in multiple ways. Riyadh has funded schools (madrassa) in various Muslim countries for decades to promote the Wahhabi religious cult that has intimate ties with the royal…

May 26, 2017
Postmodernism

Postmodern Conservative

In one of the many obituaries for Peter Augustine Lawler, Yuval Levin reviews Lawler's case for “postmodern conservatism.” Lawler writes: “Conservatives can be (perhaps the only) genuinely postmodern thinkers. The reason we can see beyond the modern world is that its intention to transform human nature has failed. Its project…

May 26, 2017

Lord to Lord

F orty days after Jesus rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven to take His place at the right hand of the Father (Acts 1:3). The New Testament regularly cites Psalm 110 as a prophecy of this event. Psalm 110 is patterned by three sets of seven clauses. Verses…

May 25, 2017
Philosophy

Wager

R aymond Barfield's Wager is a lovely meditation on beauty, suffering, and the variety of philosophical “styles.” Everyone, not only philosophers, has a “philosophical style”: “Constructing a life is a philosophical act. Philosophical acts that are shaped by a life, and that shape a life, constitute philosophical style . .…

May 25, 2017

Preparing A Place

I n his Ascension Theology , Douglas Farrow insists that, if the ascension is bodily, and if Jesus ascends with all His creaturehood intact, then the ascension must be to a place : “In the resurrection Jesus is already transfigured and transformed . . . in the ascension he is…

May 25, 2017

Value

A t a recent Theopolis intensive course on political economy, James Jordan argued that only a theological treatment of value can account for the double-sidedness of the concept. On the one hand, certain goods have cross-cultural, trans-historical value; gold and silver have remarkable staying power as money or back-up for…

May 24, 2017

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