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

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Romans

Robbing Temples

Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…

by Mark HorneOctober 15, 2024
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Genesis

Regarding Abel’s Offering

Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…

by Scott FairbanksOctober 3, 2024
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Hermeneutics

The Trinity and Cross in Creation

At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…

by James BejonOctober 1, 2024
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Deuteronomy

Axe Heads and Parapets: Legal Edge Cases?

How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…

by Josh JensenSeptember 24, 2024
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Political Theology

The Church Builds the World

1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…

by Gary YoungSeptember 17, 2024
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Matthew

That He would be called a Nazarene

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…

by Lyndon JostSeptember 10, 2024

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Science

Memory transfer

For a decade and a half in the middle of the twentieth century, two scientists, James McConnell and Georges Ungar attempted to determine whether memories can be transferred chemically from one organism to another. No one believes anymore that this can be done, but that’s not, according to Harry Collins…

April 15, 2013
Philosophy

Attraction of Authority

Luigi Giussani ( The Risk of Education: Discovering Our Ultimate Destiny ) say that “we experience authority when we meet someone who possesses a full awareness of reality, who imposes on us a recognition and arouses surprise, novelty, and respect.” Authority in this sense attracts: “There is an inevitable attraction…

April 15, 2013

Deleuzian theology

Atheist and immanentist, Gilles Deleuze seems to be fairly useless for theology. But Christopher Ben Simpson is able to mine some ore in his Deleuze and Theology , even for theology proper: “The Trinity is ‘the Christian multiple’ as ‘an absolute that is itself difference,’ names ‘divine difference, gives ‘the…

April 15, 2013

Power of Four

There are four fourfold keys to understanding the gospels, argues Eduardo Olaguer, Jr., in The Power of Four: Keys to the Hidden Treasures of the Gospels : the faces of the cherubim, four groups of Old Testament books, four maps, four treasures of seven symbols. Following tradition, he lines up…

April 15, 2013

For the Life of This World

An essay in appreciation of Alexander Schmemann at the Trinity House site this morning.

April 15, 2013

Eucharistic meditation

John 14:12; 16:7: Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father . . . . It is good that I go away. Despite the…

April 14, 2013

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