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Writing

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

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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Three into the one

Brown makes the interesting observation that the phrase at the end of 1 John 5:8 is not “the three are one” but “the three are into one” (Greek, eis to hen ). Spirit, water, and blood are not quite a united witness but three witnesses tending toward one end, one…

February 2, 2007

Outpoured Spirit

Raymond Brown helpfully observes, “For the Christian the life-giving moment of the Spirit was not simply the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus in the form of a dove, but the Spirit flowing from within Jesus after his death. And the flowing blood, the sign of the sacrificial victim, showed…

February 1, 2007

New Creation

Spirit and water are the agents of the first creation. Jesus doesn’t come that way. He doesn’t come by water only. Neither did renewal under the law. Cleansing came by water baths and also by shedding and distributing blood. Neither does the church. It doesn’t grow by water only, but…

February 1, 2007

Three witnesses

John appeals to three witnesses in 1 John 5:6-8: Spirit, water, blood. These are all witnesses at the Exodus - the Spirit-cloud that leads Israel through the wilderness, the water of the sea, the blood of Passover. Among other things, these three witnesses testify that Jesus is the greater Moses,…

February 1, 2007
Science

World, Nature, Physis

An addendum to an earlier post on Rosenstock-Huessy’s essay, “The Metabolism of Science.” Though he sees world, nature, and physis as identical in some ways, he also distinguishes them. We have different experiences of the external world, and there are summarized in the Anglo-Saxon “world,” the Latin “nature,” and the…

February 1, 2007

Korah’s resurrection

1 Chronicles 6:31-38 traces the genealogy of Levite singers backwards from those appointed by David to Jacob. There are some interesting names along the way. Heman the singer’s grandpappy was Samuel son of Elkanah, whom you may remember from 1 Samuel. Further back, Samuel’s great, great . . . .grandpappy…

February 1, 2007

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