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

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Biblical Studies

Exile or Ark?

In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…

by James B. JordanApril 10, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Mark Came to be Written

The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…

by James B. JordanMarch 24, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Matthew Came to be Written

The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…

by James B. JordanMarch 20, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

Church-Culture | Cause-Effect

There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…

by Mark HorneMarch 14, 2008
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Genesis

Is Genesis 15 an Attack on Forensic Justification?

Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…

by Mark HorneMarch 6, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

On Renewing Theology

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…

by Jeff MeyersMarch 1, 2008

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Cry of Dereliction?

In a recent article, Rikki Watts challenges the notion that Jesus’ “My God, my God” is a cry of despair, suggesting that it is instead an act of power: “given the . . . its immediate impact on the temple, that it too expresses Jesus’ power. Citing John’s use of…

April 26, 2009

Christian senate

Tertullian again, denying that the church is a “faction”: “But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our congregations just what we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what we areindividuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody. When the upright, when…

April 23, 2009

Wind power

Cambridge physicist David JC Mackay ( Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air , online at www.withouthotair.com) offers a sobering analysis of the practicality of wind power as an alternative energy source for the UK: “Let’s compare this estimate of British wind potential with current installed wind power worldwide. The windmills…

April 23, 2009
Politics

Tertullian and empire again

From the Apology (39): “We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle…

April 23, 2009

Pharaonic Pastors

Surprisingly, Jesus begins His litany of woe (Matthew 23) by commending the teaching of Jewish scribes and Pharisees. They sit in the seat of Moses, and Jesus’ disciples are to “do and observe” what they say. They may sit in Moses’ seat, but they are not Mosaic in their conduct.…

April 23, 2009

Ex Nihilo: Sic et non

Did God create from nothing? Yes and No. Yes, the formless-and-void “earth” was made from nothing (Genesis 1:1-2). After that, the creation account is an account of Yahweh working with the stuff, sometimes telling the stuff (soil and water) to produce new things and new configurations of existing things. Adam…

April 22, 2009

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