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Writing

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

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Astral imagery

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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Baptismal exhortation

Colossians 1:13: He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. When Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke from heaven: “This is My beloved Son.” Paul refers to that event here when he describes salvation as a transfer from the authority…

January 27, 2013

Exhortation

“It was the Father’s good pleasure for the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things,” Paul writes in our sermon text. The Father sends the Son to renew all things because it pleases Him to do so. Nothing forces the Father. He doesn’t have to…

January 27, 2013

Created Difference

Near the beginning of On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patrictics Series) , Athanasius reviews various theories concerning the origin of the world. It cannot be the case that matter existed eternally, since that would be a limit on God. It also cannot be the case that the world is…

January 27, 2013

WEIRD Psychology

“Traditional societies are far more diverse in many of their cultural practices than are modern industrial societies,” writes Jared Diamond in his recent The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? . Modern societies are outliers on the spectrum. So it’s rather weird that “psychologists base most…

January 26, 2013

Hairy

Esau is the original hairy ( se’ar ) man of the Bible (Genesis 25:25), and the reputation goes with the Edomites, his descendants, who live at Mount Shaggy (Seir; Genesis 14:6; 32:3; 33:14; etc.). He’s not the last hairy man. Nazirites are hairy (Numbers 6:5, 18; Judges 16:22), including the…

January 25, 2013

Trinity House Newsletter

We are nearly ready to send out the first edition of our Trinity House email newsletter, In Medias Res . In the first issue, we give updates about Trinity House, I discuss the church’s response to gay marriage, and James Jordan translates and comments on Psalm 62. Sign up at…

January 25, 2013

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