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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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Paul Our Mother

With surprising regularity, Paul uses material images, often to describe his ministry to the churches. He and his helpers are like nurses to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2:7). He is a laboring woman in Galatia (4:19), and he nurses the Corinthians with milk, since they are infants in Christ (1…

June 13, 2014

We Don’t Win

Tom Engelhardt knows that wars can be won and that won wars can change geopolitical conditions: “don’t think for a moment that war never solved a problem, or achieved a goal for an imperial or other regime, or that countries didn’t regularly find victory in arms. History is filled with…

June 13, 2014

Structure in Isaiah 63

Isaiah 63 begins with a question: Who is this? He comes from the direction of Edom, his clothing is stained (the Heb. verb is chametz , “leavened”. Yahweh answer: “I speaker of righteousness, mighty to save” (v. 1; Heb. for last phrase rab lehoshiy’a ). Verse 2 asks another question:…

June 13, 2014

Aporia of Purity

Michael Guichard and Lionel Marti offer an outstanding survey of purity in ancient Mesopotamia in their contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Tradition . Among the many details, two particularly stand out. The first was the connection between purity and luminosity, purity and glory. Referring to Sumerian terms…

June 13, 2014
Pneumatology

Husbandly Spirit

Jesus gives His Spirit to His Bride, and the Bride is so filled with the Spirit that she and the Spirit speak with a single voice, which is the voice of the Word whose Spirit it is. Filled with the Spirit, the Bride longs for the Lord’s coming: The Spirit…

June 12, 2014

Participation and Play

Robert Ellis ( Games People Play ) has a lot of critical things to say about sports, but the aim of his book is to analyze and ultimately to defend sports in theological terms. He’s comfortable with the Victorian Settlement. He does that in part by correlating the results of…

June 12, 2014

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