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

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Books

Interpreting "The Man Who Was Thursday"

I just finished re-reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday . I have in the past had the temerity to say that I believe it to be the best novel of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I still maintain that it is at least one…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 7, 2022
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Hebrews

The Universality of Mary’s Wound

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be…

by Garrett SoucyJanuary 4, 2022
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Music

An Argument for Heartier Hymnals

I was inspired to write this article after reading John Ahern’s The Case for Shorter Hymnals first published on Theopolis Institute’s website on November 16, 2021. Mr. Ahern and I are writing with different audiences and emphases in mind. I am thankful we both share a mutual desire to see…

by Jarrod RicheyDecember 30, 2021
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Biblical Studies

Image of God

If you’ve spent any time in the social-media galaxy of Christian cultural commentators, you have almost definitely run across the Latin phrase Imago Dei . It means image of God . Why they usually say it in Latin, I couldn’t tell you. We saw it in the wake of the…

by Daniel HoffmanDecember 28, 2021
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Advent

He Comes to Make His Blessings Known: "Son of David" and "Son of Abraham" in Matthew 1:1

The Gospel of Matthew—indeed, the New Testament—begins with a list of names, and that list of names is introduced by this heading: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why start like this? Why “the son of David” and “the son…

by Josh JensenDecember 23, 2021
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Biblical Studies

On Not Needing to Cut the Baby in Half

A blade is raised. A child wails. But the brow under the crown is untroubled. Solomon knows that the raising of the sword will reveal the true parent and the identity of the son. But how did he know this? Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac certainly bears some of the…

by Jonathan WhiteDecember 21, 2021

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Penitential Seasons, 2

In his discussion of penitential seasons, Doug Wilson also offers this argument: “what gospel is implicitly preached by the practice of drawing out the process of repentance and forgiveness? It is a false gospel. Now I am not saying that fellow Christians who observe their church year in this way…

March 22, 2008

Dehistoricized speakers

Saussure says that speakers know almost nothing about the history of the words they speak, and this means that “the linguist who wishes to understand a state must discard all knowledge of everything that produced it and ignore diachrony. He can enter the mind of speakers only by completely suppressing…

March 21, 2008

Compassion and social revolution

Brueggemann again. He writes as if power were necessarily oppressive, but with some qualifications he has a profound point: “The replacing of numbness with compassion, that is, the end of cynical indifference and the beginning of noticed pain, signals a social revolution . . . . The capacity of feel…

March 21, 2008

Good Friday Homily

In medieval iconography, John the Evangelist is depicted as an eagle, and this portrait expresses the opinion of the early church fathers, that John wrote a “spiritual” gospel which has a “loftier spiritual purpose” than the other gospels. John is the eagle because he soars “aloft to contemplate and proclaim…

March 21, 2008

Fasting and maturation

Doug Wilson recently preached a sermon arguing against the adoption of “penitential seasons” of Advent and Lent. He makes a number of arguments and his reservations are worth considering. Here I want to respond to one of his arguments (from his sermon notes, online at Christkirk.com):”if we were to adopt…

March 21, 2008

Forgiveness and freedom

Walter Brueggemann ( Prophetic Imagination ) cites Hannah Arendt’s claim that Jesus’ offer of forgiveness was his “most endangering action because if a society does not have an apparatus for forgiveness, then its members are fated to live forever with the consequences of any violation. Thus the refusal to forgive…

March 21, 2008

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