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Writing

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

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Poetry

The Donkey

G.K. Chesterton assumes a surprising and memorable perspective from which to view the events of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The Donkey by: G.K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head…

by Arthur KayApril 14, 2022
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Hermeneutics

The Tree, the Cross, and the Supper

There is a common biblical principle: you must give back what you steal. In the Bible, restitution is repayment with interest. If you rob someone of their money, you have to pay back double what you stole. A thief must pay back fourfold if he steals a sheep, and if…

by Kyle LammottApril 12, 2022
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Isaiah

The King’s Cure

Identifying Isaiah’s suffering servant with the promised Messiah is unthinkable for a Jew because it combines the offices of humble priest and victorious king. While it is frustrating that Jews refuse to see the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53, the reluctance of Christians to interpret the passage in its…

by Mike BullApril 5, 2022
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How to Worship

When Our Men Sing Again

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6 (ESV) The command to praise God is pervasive throughout Scripture. In the verse above the Spirit calls all things with breath to praise the Lord. Song is also clearly featured all throughout Scripture and is a featured…

by Grant Van BrimmerMarch 29, 2022
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Culture

The Transgender Bait and Switch

“Gender is a social construct.” That’s shocking to people who have assumed that gender and sex were synonyms but at least since I was in college, in the ‘80s, we were taught that “gender” refers to the forms, the customs, the traditions that our culture teaches us to define what…

by John CarpenterMarch 22, 2022
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Biblical Studies

Israel, Judah, and the Narrative Flow of the Bible

In Genesis 49, Jacob prophesies about (blesses and curses?) his twelve sons. The first three of them don’t fare well. Jacob recalls Reuben’s offense of taking his concubine (Genesis 35:22) and the murderous violence of Simeon’s and Levi against the Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). He…

by Mark HorneMarch 17, 2022

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Like a deer

Griffiths again ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 62) on the “gazelle and hind” of the oath in Song of Songs 2:7. He connects this passage to the image of the hart longing for God in Psalm 42 “When the lovers like one another to…

August 30, 2012

Course of true love

Griffiths again ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 60): “The placement of the adjuration formula is important. Here in 2:7 it concludes a series of endearment exchanges between the lover and the beloved (1:9-2:6). Those exchanges have a rhythm: they move from memory to yearning…

August 30, 2012

Awakening love

Working from the Vulgate text, Paul Griffiths ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 59) has this helpful comment on the adjuration of the daughters of Jerusalem in Song of Songs 2:7: The “charge to [the daughters] can be read simply as an adjuration not to…

August 30, 2012

Embrace

When Jacob arrives at Haran, Laban runs to meet him, embraces and kisses him, and welcomes him into the house (Genesis 29:13). When Jacob returns to the land, Esau runs to meet him, embraces and kisses him, and the two weep together (Genesis 33:4). Jacob’s exile is literarily embraced with…

August 29, 2012

Pre-ethical

In a 2010 article in the Lutheran Quarterly , Oswald Bayer examines the pre-ethical conditions for Christian ethics: “Over against a prescriptive overheating of ethics which has taken place since Kant, and the actualism and activism often bound up with this overheating, it is necessary to make clear the significance…

August 28, 2012
History

Monasticism’s afterlife

Lester Little again: “By a curious paradox, the most significant and lasting vestiges of monasticism occurred either where monasticism was totally wiped out or had never before existed; they are found in English and American colleges and in radical Protestant sects. The collegiate debt to monastic culture is most apparent…

August 28, 2012

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