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Writing

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

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Ezra

Ezra: The Aaronic Rest-Giver

If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…

by Rhys LavertyJune 8, 2021
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1 John

1 John in Community

Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…

by Tim NicholsJune 1, 2021
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Hermeneutics

Spending Time with Noah: Reflections on Prepositions in the Flood Narrative

In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…

by Josh JensenMay 25, 2021
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Philosophy

Steven Weinberg Destroyed My Faith

Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 18, 2021
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Colossians

Reconciliation in Colossians 1:20

Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 11, 2021
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Movies

Terror of Knowing Myself

Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 4, 2021

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History

American Adam

John Hollander ( Figure of Echo ) thinks there’s more going on in the Gettysburg Address than “a monument of the antimonumental, of noble plain style”: “the implicit contrasts set up a powerful pair of tropes, and either lack of appropriate access to scripture or exegetical pudeur has passed them…

May 19, 2008
Literature

Grain of Wheat

The 1967 novel, A Grain of Wheat , by Ngugi wa Thiong’o tells the story of a village as Kenyan independence approaches. There is a love triangle involving Mumbi and the rivals for her love, the collaborator Karanja and the carpenter Gikonyo, who eventually marries her. There is the tortured…

May 19, 2008

Sermon outline, Second Sunday of Trinity

INTRODUCTION Jesus’ ministry is a significant discontinuity in Israel ’s history. But it is not entirely discontinuous with that history. In a series of parables, Jesus explains how He is not the cancellation but the climax of Israel ’s story. Like the Psalmist, he utters hidden things (Matthew 13:34 -35;…

May 19, 2008

Pentateuchal diversity

Jewish biblical scholar Jon Levenson notices the discrepancies between Exodus and Deuteronomy, specifically regarding the length of time for eating unleavened bread (Exodus 12:18; Deuteronomy 16:8). The Rabbis noticed them too. Instead of concluding that this is a signal of multiple sources, he follows the rabbis in suggesting that (in…

May 17, 2008
History

Uncharity and the secular

David Yeago writes “The modern secularity project was not a demonic upsurge of incomprehensible hostility to the faith; it was in large measure the attempt of decent minds to cope with the chaos public Christianity had wrought in the wake of the Reformation. The incapacity of Christians to live together…

May 17, 2008

Wedding Sermon

Marriage is impossible. Christian marriage is also impossible, only more so. Marriage is impossible because it demands that two people devote themselves to each other, no matter what, for the rest of their lives. Christian marriage demands more: Husbands are to be like Christ, wives like the church, and together…

May 17, 2008

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