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

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John

Jesus, David, Adam: A Reading of John 18:1-11

John 18:1-11 appears on the surface to be a straightforward, if somewhat unusual, narrative of Jesus’ arrest by officers of the chief priests and Pharisees accompanied by an apparently large group of Roman soldiers, all of them led by the betrayer, Judas. But there is much more here than what…

by Ralph Allan SmithJuly 3, 2013
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American Politics

Not So Special

Why is the US embroiled in the Middle East? There are two primary answers: Oil and Israel. Both are fairly intractable problems, the latter in significant part because of the unique convergence of theology and politics that has forged American policy in the region. Dispensationalists insist that we must bless…

by Peter LeithartJuly 1, 2013
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Hermeneutics

Raven of the Gospel

There’s a common theme that arises in the study of theologians James B. Jordan and Peter Leithart. It is this: Context matters. Details matter. This is God’s Word. The details are not arbitrary “filler” hiding the kernel of truth in the husk of the text. The husk and the kernel…

by Troy GreeneJune 26, 2013
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Anxiety

Marriage and Betrayal

Perhaps the most fearful of all possibilities in the world is the possibility of betrayal on the part of someone who is in a “position of trust.” This, unfortunately, is the first block in what ought to be the foundation of every marriage in the world. Every woman has a…

by Richard BledsoeJune 24, 2013
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Theopolis News

One More Week

Only one more week to register to the Trinity Term class on "How to Read the Bible," taught by James Jordan and Peter Leithart. Sign up today!

by Peter LeithartJune 24, 2013
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Homosexuality

Reorienting our Sex Talk

The way we talk about the world matters. Our doctrine of creation tells us that words do not simply reflect reality. They also shape it and the way we inhabit it. Among the world’s many language groups, the Church is distinct. She is called to name things with Scriptural language,…

by Matthew MasonJune 19, 2013

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Hugeness

Jason Zengerle has an interesting piece in the TNR on evangelical conversions to Orthodoxy. At the end of the article, he quotes Jordan DeRenzo, who converted to Orthodoxy when her Baptist pastor, Wilbur Ellsworth, converted. She says: “Coming to the Orthodox Church means that I am in communion with that…

August 30, 2007
Theology

Faith and Reason

For centuries, Christians have posed the dilemma of Christian theology as a problem of faith v. reason. That’s a non-starter, a concession of defeat, for it assumes that there can be such a thing as a faith-free rationality. But there cannot be. What we have is not a conflict of…

August 30, 2007

Homoousios

We fondly look back at the Council of Nicea as a solution to the problem of Arianism, and see the homoousios as the key to this solution. Things are not nearly so tidy. Robert Letham neatly summarizes the problems associated with the term in his recent book on Orthodoxy: “As…

August 28, 2007

Liturgical footwear

Henry Chadwick notes, “Some Christians late in the fourth century, especially round Brescia, walked barefoot after the example of Moses at the burning bush or the prophet Isaiah who went barefoot for three years. Successive bishops deplored this, evidently in vain. Much ancient evidence records the axiom that for cultic…

August 28, 2007
History

Wordsworth and the Picturesque

According to a 1964 article in Modern Philology by John Nabholtz, Wordsworth intended his Guide to the Lakes (first published in 1810; fifth edition in 1835) as a corrective to picturesque writers like Gilpin. He intended his book to model how landscape writing should be done, and most critics have…

August 27, 2007
Literature

Pauline Wordsworth

In a 1993 article in the Review of English Studies , Colin Pedley points out the similarities between the cadences of this passage from “Tintern Abbey” and Paul’s triumphant conclusion to Romans 8: My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart…

August 27, 2007

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