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American Culture

The Affections of Asbury

Over the past few days, quite the event has developed at Asbury University down in Wilmore, Kentucky. University students have appeared at the Hughes Auditorium to worship and sing praises to God, which has continued for over 90 hours at the time of this writing. There is recent reporting that…

by Charles JacobiFebruary 16, 2023
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Apostle Paul

Paul and Nero

It is well-enough known that Nero was emperor from AD 54 when he was just 16 until his death as a young man of 30 in AD 68, just 14 years later. Paul ministered during most of those 14 years (we are not sure which year he died), accomplishing 3…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 14, 2023
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Apostle Paul

For Me to Live is Christ!

When the apostle Paul says, “For me to live is Christ!” (Philippians 1:21), we do not find it difficult to understand. Paul had been a faithful servant of Christ from the time that Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus (AD 30) and through Ananias told Paul that he…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 9, 2023
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Song of Songs

Bridal Song

I think there’s a layer to the Song of Songs which has been largely unexamined. The Song is about Christ and his church, Yahweh and Israel, the nature of the marriage covenant, and the marriage of the couple in the Song. But while the Song is “of Solomon” (or to…

by Daniel StanleyFebruary 8, 2023
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Biblical Studies

Paul and the Praetorian Guard

In Philippians 1:12-13, Paul informs his beloved brothers in Philippi that his Roman imprisonment — which one would naturally think hindered his ministry and the preaching of the Gospel — actually resulted in the surprising and wonderful progress of the Gospel. Of course, from our perspective 2000 years later and…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 2, 2023
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Biblical Theology

Abraham’s Seed: Heavens, Earth, and Sea Made New

In a recent post , I explored the threefold order of creation—heavens, earth, and sea—and suggested that in Genesis 1 God stamps heaven’s order, his own threefold nature, on the creation, giving earth a trinitarian shape. So what happens to the three-level architecture of creation after Genesis 1? We don’t…

by Josh JensenFebruary 1, 2023

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Melvillian

In a short story called “The Fog-horn,” Ray Bradbury wrote of his most important prose-poems: “One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, ‘we need a voice to call across the water, to warn…

July 28, 2014

Anti-Urban America

Steven Conn ( Americans Against the City ) thinks there’s a contradiction at the center of America’s attitude toward cities. Cities play a huge role in our economy and culture, because of their density of population and the possibilities this opens for public institutions and cultural spaces. Conn examines “two…

July 28, 2014
Trinity

Anti-Anti-Formalism

In his stimulating study of Augustine, Barth, and contemporary Trinitarian theology, Incarnational Realism , Travis Ables summarizes two tendencies of recent Trinitarian thought: Hegelian idealism and personalism. He sees both “as salutary in their intentions” but in danger of service “as an increasingly formalistic conceptual paradigm to serve idealist or…

July 28, 2014

Who is Michael?

Michael and his angels fight the dragon and his angels, and expel them from heaven (Revelation 12). Who is this Michael? Michael appears in Qumran texts, and in apocalyptic texts outside the canon. My focus here, though, is on the what the Bible itself says about Michael. Revelation 12 begins…

July 28, 2014

Crowded Universe

Anti-moderns often speak nostalgically of the “crowded universe” of yesterday, when the world wasn’t just matter in motion but full of fairies and sprites and whatnot. It’s a charming picture, but the reality of a crowded universe wasn’t necessarily a happy thing. Stephan Maul writes of ancient Mesopotamia: “If a…

July 26, 2014

Sun and Shield

Stephan Maul summarizes the ritual that an ancient Mesopotamian would have to go through to be released from the displeasure of the gods, which was communicated to the person by a bad omen (a barking dog, a growling cat, etc.). The key portion of the rite was played out before…

July 26, 2014

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