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

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abortion
Abortion

Letters on Abortion, (Part 1)

What is below is fairly self-explanatory. This is an exchange I had with a local liberal clergyman on the subject of abortion. The circumstances of the debate are included in the text itself. I initially e-mailed this out to a list of clergy in our city after a local (and…

by Richard BledsoeNovember 17, 2015
wall-2
Ezra

The Perfumed Butler and the Wisdom of Civil Obedience

The seemingly humdrum parts of the Bible often hide overlooked wisdom. Take, for example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their stories aren't exactly the most gripping or memorable. They are far less concrete than, say, the story of the Exodus. No one in Ezra is stricken blind or devoured…

by Christian LeithartNovember 10, 2015
sparkler
Happiness

"Happy! Happy! Happy!" Authentic Happiness and Its Knock-Offs

For most of the past century, philosophical perspectives on life in the western world have been overtly grim and pessimistic. The optimism of the Enlightenment, generated by confidence in the scientific method and the potential of an increasingly civilized humanity to redress the evils of the world, was shattered by…

by Bill DeJongNovember 5, 2015
aaron-burden-1ebsmyrau-s-unsplash
Hermeneutics

How Does a Chiasm Mean?

Chiastic structures are found all over the Bible, and in recent decades commentators have become more adept at spotting them. But identifying these literary structures is only part of the challenge. There remains the challenge of understanding what they mean. Part of the answer is found in the recognition that…

by Steve JefferyNovember 3, 2015
last-supper
Eucharist

How To Change the World, (Part 2)

Part 1 can be found HERE . Clearly, more than just getting worship right is important in changing the world, but since worship is the central act of God’s people, performed on the first day of the week at the center of the world before the very face of God,…

by James B. JordanOctober 29, 2015
solomonsidolatry
Biblical Theology

Big Love: A History of Stolen Fruit

“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed.” ( Luke 11:27 ) Arguing for Christian morality in a secular society is difficult. A culture which accepts evolutionary dogma has no intellectual place — or inherent desire — for absolute morality, since it believes morality…

by Mike BullOctober 27, 2015

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Theology

Eschatological Economy

At a quick glance, Douglas H. Knight’s The Eschatological Economy (Eerdmans, 2006) looks very good. Some of Knight’s other work has been on John Zizioulas, the Orthodox Trinitarian theologian, and this book includes discussions of Zizioulasian themes like Trinity, personhood, Trinitarian personhood, personhood and being, etc. Yet, Knight’s book is…

July 4, 2007
Uncategorized

New Pentecost, New Babel

A reader, Dan Glover, sends the following reflections concerning my quotations from John Mbiti on the “Pentecostal” experience of getting the Bible in the vernacular: “Your comment from John Mbiti got me thinking of what the Bible in the vernacular of a culture does. It ignited the reformation as well…

July 4, 2007
Music

Bach’s Bible

In his biography of Bach, Martin Geck quotes a number of notes that Bach penned in the “Calov Bible,” a copy of Luther’s translation that belonged at one time to the theologian Abraham Calov. On Miriam and her singing women, he writes, “First prelude to be performed in two choruses…

July 3, 2007
Music

Bach’s Bible

In his biography of Bach, Martin Geck quotes a number of notes that Bach penned in the “Calov Bible,” a copy of Luther’s translation that belonged at one time to the theologian Abraham Calov. On Miriam and her singing women, he writes, “First prelude to be performed in two choruses…

July 3, 2007
Biblical Studies

Scriptures and separation

Studying African independent churches, David Barrett concluded that the single most important factor in dividing independent churches from missionary-founded churches was the vernacular translation of the Bible. As soon as the Bible was available in the native tongue, readers could check the teaching and practice of the missionary churches against…

July 3, 2007
History

Museums or churches?

Mbiti laments that often “African Christians feel terribly foreign within the doors of the churches to which we belong. Lutheran missionaries have made us more Lutheran than the Germans; Roman Catholic missionaries have made us feel and behave more Roman than the Italians; Anglican missionaries have made us more Anglican…

July 3, 2007

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