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Apostle Paul

Paul in Prison: Ephesus or Rome?

In the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to hardships in his ministry in Asia, specifically Ephesus (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 15:32; 2 Corinthians 1:8; 4:8-12; 6:4-5; 11:23-25). However, the multiple imprisonments Paul mentions are not fully reflected in Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry — Luke only records a…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 15, 2022
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Epistemology

Vertical Living

After all these months pondering integration, I have come to the point of believing that the dynamic of integration just is the real at its heart. Everything that is real or comes to be real is a dynamo of integrative coherence. I also believe it is true that the real…

by Esther Lightcap MeekFebruary 1, 2022
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Books

Tom Holland and the Liberating Power of Christianity

Have you heard of Tom Holland? Not the young Tom Holland of Spiderman fame. No doubt you’ve heard of him. I’m referring to the middle age Oxford-trained historian who recently wrote Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind . (Both Hollands are British, so you’ll be forgiven for confusing them.)…

by Gerald HiestandJanuary 25, 2022
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Biblical Horizons

"Do This!"

This article was originally published in 1990. (The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what…

by James B. JordanJanuary 19, 2022
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American Culture

The Dominion Trap

This article was originally published in 1990. In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on…

by James B. JordanJanuary 13, 2022
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Biblical Studies

Will Few Be Saved?

On several occasions the gospels record Jesus teaching that only a few will be saved (Matthew 7:14, Matthew 22:14, and Luke 13:23). Careful readers of Scripture should begin to wrestle with how these passages found in the gospels fit together with other passages that teach that many will be saved…

by Manny LucasJanuary 11, 2022

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Baptized into the cloud

That Paul says that the crossing of the sea is a “baptism” is surprising enough; but then he says that the baptism is “into the cloud.” Where’d he get that? You can suss that out from the exodus story, but I suspect that Paul has conflated the exodus story with…

August 24, 2009

Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION Jesus finishes His prophetic discourse with a series of three parables – the parable of the wicked slave (24:45-51), the parable of the ten virgins (25:1-13), and the parable of the talents (25:14-30). Each of these is about expectation, and each describes how wise and faithful disciples respond to…

August 24, 2009

Temporary Special Call

A friend called attention to this remarkable passage in Calvin’s Institutes (3.24.8): “there is a universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of severer…

August 23, 2009

Exhortation

Jesus’ Olivet Discourse is not about the end of the world. But it is about the end of a world, and because of that it instructs the church in every age. Since Jesus ascended, a number of worlds have come and gone. Most of us believe that the Roman empire…

August 23, 2009
Literature

Jane’s fame

Did Jane Austen want people to read and admire her work? Of course; she was a writer. Did she like making money from writing? Yes. She wasn’t the wispy angel that her family biographers tried to make her out to be. To this extent Claire Harman ( Jane’s Fame: How…

August 20, 2009

Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION Jesus tells His disciples what events will precede the end of Jerusalem , and He tells them that these events will take place within the generation of the apostles (v. 34). He does not, however, tell them the year or even the decade when they will occur (v. 36,…

August 17, 2009

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