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

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Biblical Horizons

Christ Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed!

"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…

by Peter LeithartFebruary 23, 1991
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Biblical Studies

Three “Falls” and Three Heroes

The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…

by James B. JordanFebruary 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Chronology of Ezra & Nehemiah, Part 1

In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…

by James B. JordanFebruary 22, 1991
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Matthew

Pluck It Out!

These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…

by Peter LeithartFebruary 2, 1991
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Proverbs

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 9

17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…

by James B. JordanJanuary 30, 1991
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Biblical Horizons

The Dominion Church

The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…

by James B. JordanJanuary 30, 1991

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Atonement

Not the Foundation

Jeremy Treat’s The Crucified King is a salutary attempt to heal the breach in biblical and systematic theology between the kingdom and the cross. The goal of creation is to establish “God’s reign through his servant-kings over creation” (40), and that is what Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection aimed at:…

May 15, 2014

Creative Delay

It’s now possible to watch an entire season of a TV show in a couple of nights. If you don’t have to get up too early the next day, a long night will do the trick. Robin Sloan argues that we miss something when we binge, and not just commercial…

May 14, 2014

Reconsecrating the Sanctuary

The day of atonement (or “day of coverings”) involved a re-investiture of the priest. At the beginning of the rite, he removed his garments of glory (Leviticus 16:3) and at the end of the day he put them back on (16:23-24). Before the rites, he bathed his body (16:4) and…

May 14, 2014

Spirit Realized By Matter

J.R. Illingworth explains in Divine Immanence that consciousness, mind, and the human spirit are realized only materially. He is not reductive. Thought is not simply the firing of synapses. But “Our every state of consciousness depends, as we have seen, upon the brain, and therefore upon the blood that nourishes…

May 14, 2014
Uncategorized

Serious Entertainment

D. Brent Laytham suggests that entertainment falls into the biblical category of a “power,” a good aspect of creation designed to “give, sustain, and enrich life” but one that, in a fallen world, tends to “turn away from God, becoming self-referential and self-aggrandizing” ( iPod, YouTube, Wii Play , 27).…

May 14, 2014

Holy War and Secularization

Philip Jenkins’s latest, The Great and Holy War , examines the religious dimensions of World War I. On all sides, he observes, it was characterized as a holy war, a comic battle that would culminate in Armageddon and perhaps usher in an eschatological order. In fact it was, as Andrew…

May 14, 2014

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