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Writing

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

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Leviticus

Cathedral Offerings

Interwoven within Leviticus’ opening offerings is a redemptive storyline meant to be rehearsed. Each offering makes a particular contribution to the retelling of the Exodus deliverance. Like learning a dance, Israel’s opening rituals recount their steps from Egypt to Sinai in a fashion meant to perpetually imprint its experience on…

by Ben LoveladyMay 15, 2025
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Mark

Mark 7 in Color

In Capernaum, the leaders of Israel questioned Jesus in their hearts. Beside the sea, they questioned his disciples about their rabbi’s practices. They challenged Jesus in the grain fields, sought to trap him in the synagogue, tried to seize him, thinking he was mad, and accused him of being possessed.…

by George EdemaMay 13, 2025
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Psalm-singing

Rascals in a Cave

An essay on ministry taken from recent notes for a ‘solemn charge’ I gave our pastoral team (together with their spouses) at All Saints Honolulu, a church-plant that enters its fifth year. I. After receiving the sword of Goliath from Ahimelech at Nob, and after fleeing first to and then…

by Mark BriansMay 6, 2025
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Biblical Theology

A Theology of Tombs: Burial and the Promises of God

When thinking about the book of Genesis, we often think of beginnings, the beginning of the world, humanity, the elect people of God. The word “genesis” itself means beginning. Genesis is also known as the book of promises. Genesis contains three of the major Old Testament covenants: Adamic, Noahic and…

by Matthew DarbyApril 30, 2025
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Luke

Mountain, Tomb, Table: Moses and Elijah as the First Witnesses at the Empty Tomb

A Theological and Typological Commentary on Luke 24:4 In Luke 24:4, we are told that as the women arrived at the tomb on Easter morning, they encountered “two men in dazzling apparel” standing beside them. This description, on its own, may not immediately provoke questions. The traditional interpretation identifies these…

by Bruce GrimmetApril 29, 2025
Acts

Easter Meditation (Part 2)

For Part 1, click HERE . The four Gospel accounts give us their strange and wonderful historical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. The rest of the New Testament, either explicitly or by suggestion, refers to the resurrection in every book except 3 John. Unlike the Gospel accounts, however, most…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 22, 2025

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Reverse Exodus

T he book of Acts ends with a sailor's yarn. Paul has appealed to Caesar, and is sailing toward Italy when the ship hits a squall. Luke gives a detailed account of the efforts to save the ship and the final shipwreck at Malta, during which all 276 people on…

June 30, 2017

Canon and Communio

I n her essay in Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine , Mary Doak unpacks some features of a Trinitarian, communion-oriented political theology. She doesn't, however, think that communio ecclesiology implies pacificism, and, as a feminist theologian, she worries that communio can be used to blunt the force of…

June 30, 2017

Prince's Poo

D an Piepenbring comments briefly in The Paris Review on a bizarre fashion trend of the eighteenth century: “During Marie Antoinette’s time, for instance, there was a brief craze for caca-dauphin , a shade of brown that resembled the color of the new prince Louis-Joseph’s soiled diapers. In the most…

June 30, 2017

The OlivierBrando

R eflecting on the retirement of actor Daniel Day-Lewis at Variety , Owen Gleiberman suggests that “What retired . . . is something that’s waning in the culture: the belief in acting as a highly sculpted soul transplant—as the mystical spirit of inhabitation.” He fills out the point by situating…

June 30, 2017

Finding Your Voice

M y son Woelke sent this along, from Louis Menand: The real basis for the metaphor of voice in writing is not speaking. It is singing. You cannot know a singer from her speech, and although ‘natural phrasing' and ‘from the heart' are prized attributes of song, actually singing that…

June 30, 2017

Shakespeare and Montaigne

I n the course of reviewing Philippe Desan's Montaigne: A Life , Jane Kramer speculates on the fraught question of Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare. Such influence is historically plausible: “Although Florio’s 1603 effort was the first English rendering of Montaigne’s essays to appear in book form, they had certainly been…

June 30, 2017

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