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Writing

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

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Ezra

Ezra: The Aaronic Rest-Giver

If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…

by Rhys LavertyJune 8, 2021
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1 John

1 John in Community

Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…

by Tim NicholsJune 1, 2021
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Hermeneutics

Spending Time with Noah: Reflections on Prepositions in the Flood Narrative

In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…

by Josh JensenMay 25, 2021
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Philosophy

Steven Weinberg Destroyed My Faith

Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 18, 2021
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Colossians

Reconciliation in Colossians 1:20

Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 11, 2021
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Movies

Terror of Knowing Myself

Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 4, 2021

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Given over

As many have observed, Paul alludes to Psalm 106 in his condemnation of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men in Romans 1. Paul writes that human beings “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals…

June 21, 2013
American Religion

One Nation

What makes the United States ” one nation “? I offer some thoughts at Firstthings.com this morning.

June 21, 2013

Divine Kinsman

Karen Joines ( The Incomparable Divine Kinsman of Second Isaiah ) gives this fine summary of the Old Testament description of Yahweh as go’el : ” Go’el used of God means that he is the ‘kinsman’ of those without kinsmen, that he can withhold life from the jaws of Sheol,…

June 20, 2013

Text and History

O’Connell ( Concentricity and Continuity: The Literary Structure of Isaiah (Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) , 244-5). Historically, the sequence is: Isaiah prophecies concerning Judah’s cultic and social sins, but Judah is too blind and deaf to respond. The prophet and his message are “utterly rejected.” Isaiah warns of a…

June 20, 2013

Saved by Water

Yahweh is going to redeem Israel in the latter days, and the deliverance will be so dramatic that Israel will forget her former deliverance (Isaiah 43:18). As Robert O’Connell points out ( Concentricity and Continuity: The Literary Structure of Isaiah (Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) , 25), this announcement is…

June 20, 2013

Sevens all the way down

O’Connell ( Concentricity and Continuity: The Literary Structure of Isaiah (Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) ) finds a complex sevenfold structure in Isaiah: A. 1:1-2:5: exordium, appeal for reconciliation B. Two accusatory sections B1. Cultic, 2:6-21 B2. Social, 3:1-4:1 C. Two prophecies of punishment and reconciliation C1. Zion, 4:2-11:16 C2.…

June 20, 2013

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