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Writing

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

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Pastoral Ministry

Rural Church Growth

I've pastored a very rural church for well over a decade. Our town has about 1,000 people and will never grow until Jesus returns. 38 people attend our worship on Sundays. Here's a quick list of what we’ve done to grow our church, and what I’ve done to survive pastorally.…

by TheopolisAugust 10, 2017
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Art

Letter to a Young Artist

Thanks for sharing so honestly about your current crisis of creativity. I totally understand and relate to that; it’s happened many times in my musical life thus far, and I’ve begun to accept it as a normal rhythm of the creative process. I actually went through a serious dry spell…

by Joel ClarksonAugust 8, 2017
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Biblical Theology

Stones and Fruit: Divination and Procreation – (Part 3)

The Broken Stones of Israel At Sinai, the tablets of the Law of Moses were broken and restored. The Old Testament is a history of “new covenants,” including that promised in Jeremiah and fulfilled in Zechariah. Ultimately, the vertical Oath and the horizontal Sanctions met in the death of Jesus…

by Mike BullAugust 3, 2017
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Isaiah

God's Market, the Church

Woe to the sinful nation. Woe to those who enlarge their estates and build their portfolios. Woe to the drunks. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to the proud who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to Congressmen who pass unjust laws and to…

by Peter LeithartAugust 1, 2017
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Romans

In the Flesh: Then and Now

The interpretation of Romans 7:7-25 is notoriously difficult. Good scholars disagree on many aspects of the passage, but the central interpretative difficulty concerns the identity of the “I.” Is Paul referring to himself? Is Paul referring to himself pre- or post-conversion? Does the “I” refer to Adam? Is the “I”…

by Bill SmithJuly 27, 2017
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How to Worship

The Minister's Uniform

You board the Metra train at Arlington Heights station one afternoon, heading to downtown Chicago for some sight-seeing. As the train departs from the station, a man in jeans, a striped t-shirt, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap enters your train car, and begins asking to see each passenger’s…

by Jon HerrJuly 25, 2017

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Atonement Theory

Classic atonement theories have looked past the gospel narratives in an effort to uncover the underlying substructure, logic or mechanism of atonement. What if the gospel narratives are the atonement theory? What if, instead of God’s offended honor or God’s reputation for just rule, we began our atonement theories with…

April 10, 2014
Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Words

Shakespeare’s Words bills itself as a “glossary” and it is that. David and Ben Crystal combed through all of Shakespeare’s works identifying potentially “difficult” words, and this handbook is the result. As you would expect, they give crisp definitions, along with citations from the plays, for unfamiliar Elizabethanisms: fardel, bodkin,…

April 10, 2014

Genesis Enigma

Andrew Parker is no creationist, and he has little patience for intelligent design. Yet he thinks that Genesis 1’s account of the origin of the universe is scientifically accurate. He asks “Could it be that the creation account on page one of Genesis was written as it is because that…

April 10, 2014

Same old Same

Emma Pierson studied “studied 1 million matches made by the online dating website eHarmony’s algorithm, which aims to pair people who will be attracted to one another and compatible over the long term; if the people agree, they can message each other to set up a meeting in real life.…

April 10, 2014

Liberalism Against Humanity

In his Blood and Belonging , Michael Ignatieff offers this remarkably frank assessment of liberalism: “If I had supposed, as the Cold War came to an end, that the new world might be ruled by philosophers and poets, it was because I believed, foolishly, that the precarious civility and order…

April 9, 2014

Plato and Moses

In his NYRB review of Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews , G. W. Bowersock claims that Schama doesn’t give enough attention to the role of the Septuagint in late antique efforts to reconcile Judaism and Hellenism. Bowerstock doesn’t seem impressed with the claim of Aristobulus of Paneas (and…

April 9, 2014

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