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

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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
extreme-unction
Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
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American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Out of Egypt

In Histories II, Herodotus claims that Greeks borrowed the very name Dionysus from Egyptians, not to mention the phallic procession associated with that god: “it was Melampous who introduced the phallic procession, and from Melampous that the Greeks learnt the rites that they now perform. Melampous, in my view, was…

July 17, 2014

Son of Ammon

According to Egyptian mythology, Osiris was the son of Ra, who later became associated with Amon. In the New Kingdom, these melded together, producing a union of Amon-Ra with his son Osiris. According to Martin Bernal ( Black Athena , 1.115-6), Alexander the Great saw himself “as this syncretic divinity,…

July 17, 2014

Subversive Sleep

Jonathan Crary begins his 24/7 describing experiments to increase the time that soldiers can stay awake and alert. 24/7 has been around for a long time.So far, humans have resisted, simply by getting tired. Now we’re trying to create humans who can flourish, or at least survive, in the unnatural…

July 17, 2014

Where are Yahweh’s Eyes?

Isaiah 66 begins with an obvious allusion to this prayer. Yahweh claims to sit enthroned in heaven and use earth as His footstool (v. 1), and adds that, gargantuan as He is, He is uncontainable by any house that Israel might make for Him (v. 1). Solomon already knew this:…

July 17, 2014

Payday

Isaiah 66:6 would make a neat movie scene. First we hear a voice of tumult, a voice like the roaring of the sea or like the din of a gigantic party. It’s coming from the city, but the camera keeps moving to focus on the temple ( heykal , “palace,”…

July 17, 2014

Ezra/Nehemiah

James Hamilton’s lively new commentary on Exalting Christ in Ezra and Nehemiah is a volume in the Christ-Centered Exposition series. The series, written for pastors, is founded on the premise that the Bible “contains a unified story of redemptive history of which Jesus is the hero” (ix). Hamilton’s volume handles…

July 16, 2014

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