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

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Biblical Horizons

On Not Yoking an Ox and an Ass Together

5. Simeon and Levi: Brothers they destroyed. They treated violently their circumcised-covenant fellows. 6. "Into their counsel let not my soul enter. Into their assembly let not my glory join. For in their anger they killed a man, And in their pleasure they hamstrung an ox. 7. Cursed is their…

by James B. JordanAugust 4, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

The Seven Edomite Kings

The fact that there is a "week" of seven kings over Edom, before we come to an eighth, hints that perhaps these have some link with the days of Genesis 1, especially as we find this list in the book of Genesis. Clearly the list of seven speaks of the…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 2000
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Theologia

The Ethic of Eternal Schism

Remember, whatever sins are committed by those with whom you are in covenant are your sins as well. You need to fear the judgment of God if you continue to be part of this denomination. I have recently discovered that the above rationalization is floating around cyberspace to justify breaking…

by Mark HorneJune 3, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

Not Drunk As You Suppose

While Samuel’s mother Hannah prays at the tabernacle, the high priest Eli sees her lips moving silently and concludes that she is drunk (1 Samuel 1:13-14). Hannah protests that she has poured nothing into her, but is "pouring out" her soul before Yahweh; far from being giddy with wine, she…

by Peter LeithartMay 27, 2000
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Federal Vision

CREDO | Regarding Personal Justification before God

For the record: I believe that those whom God effectually calls, he also freely justifies: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone;…

by Mark HorneMay 20, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

How to Chant the Psalms

Over the years, the ministry of Biblical Horizons has strongly advocated singing the psalms in worship. The Psalter is God’s hymnal, and we don’t need any prooftexts to know that as such, it should form the center of our praise to Him. To be sure, other hymns are permitted, just…

by James B. JordanJanuary 4, 2000

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Meeting the Protestant Prejudice

RJ Snell is aware of what he calls the “Protestant Prejudice” against natural law, and, though himself an advocate of natural law, admits that Protestants lodge “reasonable and sensible objections” against theoretical models of natural law ( The Perspective of Love , 12). Snell, though, argues that these Protestant objections…

June 16, 2014

Dan Brown and Euripides

Oliver Harris begins his TLS review of Theodore Ziolkowski’s Lure of the Arcane by pondering why two million people went out to buy Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol the first week it was out: “If those who rushed to consume this tale of ancient mysteries and secret societies were not buying…

June 14, 2014

China’s Religious Boom

In a National Interest review of Evan Osnos’s Age of Ambition , Dan Bluemnthal writes that “neither money, nor nationalism is satisfying the Chinese urge for the good life.” He quotes Haruki Murakami’s observation that nationalism is like “cheap liquor” whose effects don’t last. Blumenthal suggests that “There is a…

June 14, 2014

Climate Change, Religious Change

In his contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions , Noel Robertson argues that “Archaeology and epic poetry both fix on climate change as a fundamental cause of the Mycenaean collapse.” As the climate cooled and became wetter, the population shifted east, adopted warmer types of clothing, abandoned…

June 14, 2014

Rule-Governed Games

Bernard Suits ( The Grasshopper , 24) begins his effort to define the nature of games by distinguishing games and play from work, defined as technical activity that aims to achieve an end in the most efficient way possible. Distinguishing the two is more difficult that it might appear, and…

June 13, 2014

David’s Ephod

David leads the ark procession into Jerusalem wearing a linen ephod (1 Samuel 6). He offers sacrifices after every six paces, gets the ark into a tent, and when it’s all done he blesses the people. He functions in this rite as a royal priest, the chief “layman” in Israel.…

June 13, 2014

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