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Writing

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

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Ascension

The Son of Man in the Clouds | Part 1

References to the Son of Man coming on the clouds occur five times in the Synoptic Gospels. Three times such expressions appear in the parallel accounts of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:36; Luke 21:27). Then, in parallel accounts of Jesus’ trial before the leaders of Israel, such expressions…

by Ralph Allan SmithMarch 3, 2020
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Biblical Studies

The New Torahs

Just what the difference is in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is a question not so easily answered. The distinction is often said to be that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is on the believer, but in the New…

by Richard BledsoeFebruary 25, 2020
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Movies

1917: A Visible Word

1. Introduction You should think of 1917 at church on Sunday. Why? Let me explain. There's one film every Oscar season which everyone seems to have watched—your parents, your colleagues, even your pastor. This year, it's 1917— Sam Mendes' WW1 epic following two British Tommies on a seemingly impossible quest…

by Rhys LavertyFebruary 18, 2020
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Immigration

Greater Israel

This piece was originally part of the Bowyer response to the Theopolis series surrounding Professor McDermott’s essay, “Rethinking Israel.” For the sake of brevity, it was removed from the initial response, to be published as a standalone piece. As we’ve argued previously , we are strongly supportive of the right…

by Jerry and Charles BowyerFebruary 11, 2020
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Matthew

Matthew the Tax Collector

Richard Bauckham’s groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony , is profoundly insightful, but the message of the book is hampered by the presupposition of Marcan priority. Ironically the place where this assumption perhaps does its most damage is in Bauckham’s discussion of the apostle Matthew…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 4, 2020
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Good Works

Faith as the Highest Work

The Protestant Reformation was defined by certain clarifying disagreements between the medieval Church and those who came to be known as Protestant Reformers. Chief among these was the nature of justification: whether one was justified by works, or by faith and works, or—as Martin Luther contended—by faith alone. Now over…

by Alexander WhitakerJanuary 28, 2020

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Eucharistic meditation, First Sunday After Easter

Matthew 11:19: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners. Jesus’ teaching in this chapter is all about timing. He is the Coming One; the time of fulfillment has come, and the evidence is…

March 30, 2008

Baptismal meditation

Matthew 11:11, 13: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he . . . . For all the prophets and the law prophesied until…

March 30, 2008

Reverse exodus

In Hosea 13:15, the prophet says of Ephraim, “Though he flourishes among the reeds, an east wind will come, the wind of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; and his fountain will become dry and his spring will be dried up; it will plunder his treasury of every precious…

March 30, 2008
Literature

Satan’s party?

In her introduction to a new edition of Paradise Lost (Blackwell), Barbara Lewalski notes the oddness of Milton’s epic protagonists and setting. Citing the Proem to Book 9, she writes that Milton “has indeed given over the traditional epic subject, wars and empire, and the tradition epic hero as the…

March 29, 2008
Philosophy

Rorty, the disappointed realist

Putnam writes, “I agree with Rorty that the metaphysical assumption that there is a fundamental dichotomy between ‘intrinsic’ properties of things and ‘relational’ properties of things makes no sense; but that does not lead me to view the thoughts and experiences of my friends as just the intentional objects of…

March 29, 2008
Philosophy

Fact/Value Dichotomy

Hilary Putnam has recently traced the “collapse of the fact/value dichotomy.” He does not deny that there is a distinction to be made, useful in some contexts, between statements of fact and statements of value, especially of ethical value. But he argues that a dichotomy between fact and value is…

March 29, 2008

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