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

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Biblical Studies

The Impracticality of Application

I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions…

by Remy WilkinsJuly 4, 2017
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Biblical Theology

Stones and Fruit: Divination and Procreation – (Part One)

Stones External and Internal The modern practice of dismantling the Bible into a shambles of documents authored in response to disparate historical events rather than viewing it as a unified testimony inspired by God is a surefire way to miss what is actually going on in the text. This failure…

by Mike BullJune 29, 2017
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The Tragedy of Asa

King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by Zerach. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end,…

by Peter LeithartJune 27, 2017
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Romans

Justified by the King

What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. It's can serve as a summary of Paul's letter to the Romans, and throws some important light on the themes of that letter. Paul begins his sermon with a quick…

by Peter LeithartJune 22, 2017
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Literature

Biblical Allusion and the Meaning of Othello, (Part 2)

Iago as Tempter The answer to our first question — whether or not Othello is really great tragedy — has already pointed the way to the answer for the second question — Was Othello a noble Moor or a fool? The two questions, of course, are necessarily related. The fall…

by Ralph Allan SmithJune 20, 2017
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Theopolis News

Adam McIntosh Completes the Certificate Program

When Adam McIntosh was ordained as Pastor of Saint David’s Church (CREC) in Houston on June 11, 2017, it was the culmination of decades of preparation. Adam is the product of two continents and three Christian traditions. Born in Paducah, Kentucky, he lived his early years partly in Jericho, where…

by Peter LeithartJune 17, 2017

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Irony of Episcopal History

A llen Guelzo observes in his history of the Reformed Episcopal Church that historians of American Episcopalianism are misled by Anglo-Catholicism's success in establishing “their own vision of Episcopal history, as the single reigning view of the history of the Episcopal Church” (13). It is not, he says, a historical…

January 6, 2017

Imposing Order

I n his The Undoing Project (205-8), quotes two lengthy passages from a 1972 lecture by Amos Tversky on “Historical Interpretation: Judgment Under Uncertainty.” Both describe how historians trick themselves into seeing inevitability: In the course of our personal and professional lives, we often run into situations that appear puzzling…

January 6, 2017

Psych Tests

T wo test questions from Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project (184-5, 192-3). Q. In a family of six children, which birth order is more likely? BBBGGG or GBBGBG? A. Most say the latter, but they are equally probable, equally random. People have a mental model of “randomness,” and the second…

January 6, 2017

Of Swedes and Indians

R eligion News Service reports on a Pew survey of the religious makeup of the 115th Congress: “Nearly 91 percent of members of the 115th Congress convening Tuesday (Jan. 3) describe themselves as Christian, compared to 95 percent of Congress members serving from 1961 to 1962, according to congressional data…

January 6, 2017

Distance and Decision-Making

M ichael Lewis is the writer every writer wants to be. Every book since Liar's Poker has been a best-seller (30 years on, Liar's Poker is still a best-seller), several have been made into movies, and he writes clean, amusing, vivid, highly informative prose about some of the coolest things…

January 5, 2017

He Did Not Know Her

J oseph did not know his wife until she gave birth to a Son (Matthew 1:25). Why not? In Matthew’s account, the conception of Jesus is attributed to the “Holy Spirit” (1:20), and Luke makes it explicit that the one conceived by the Holy Spirit is Himself holy: “the holy…

January 4, 2017

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