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

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Biblical Studies

Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones

[This essay was originally published in 1988. Given the situation that our new national socialists are getting the world into, I thought it might be useful to reprint it here. – JBJordan] The Bible has quite a bit to say about gold, silver, and precious stones, and the Bible always…

by James B. JordanMay 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

The Pastoral Function

I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it. There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a…

by James B. JordanMay 17, 2009
Biblical Horizons

The Virgin Tomb: The Womb of the New Birth

James Jordan recently pointed out in private conversation how appropriate it is, in John’s Gospel, that Nicodemus is present both to ask Jesus about being born again, and to see Jesus re-enter the womb of the mother. Nicodemus rhetorically asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?…

by Mark HorneMay 8, 2009
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Romans

Romans 7

This is a problematic and much discussed passage. I’ve been discussing it in another forum, and have decided to move it here and present some very preliminary observations about it. One large question is this: Who is the speaker here and what is his situation? Traditionally, the speaker is seen…

by James B. JordanApril 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

Good New Sci-Fi

1. The current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes a good fantasy novella by John C. Wright, who since his conversion has been writing Christianly. This is a fine fantasy with nods to C. S. Lewis and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and probably Gene Wolfe as well.…

by James B. JordanApril 15, 2009
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American Culture

The Name of Jesus

“It is an experience of our days that the spoken name of Jesus alone exercises an unforeseen power; and the effort which it cost to speak this name is perhaps connected to some faint apprehension of the power which is inherent within it. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 20, 2009

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Ephraim and Forgetfulness

Psalm 78 is a wisdom Psalm about Ephraim turning into his brother, Manasseh. Ephraim’s failure to come to Jephthah’s aid (Judges 12:1-6) initiates the Psalm’s review of Israel’s stubbornness and rebellion (Psalm 78:8-10). Ephraim refused to take up arms (v. 9), a sign that Ephraim had forgotten the Exodus (v.…

May 15, 2013

Apocalyptic Patience

I have a meditation on the “little apocalypse” of Isaiah 24 at the Trinity House web site today.

May 15, 2013

Thousand years as a day

In his commentary on Revelation (in Greek Commentaries on Revelation (Ancient Christian Texts) , Oecumenius interprets the millennium as the period between Christ’s incarnation and His ascension. During “the time of the incarnation of the Lord, the devil was bound and was not able to resist the marks of the…

May 15, 2013

Self-fulfillment

In Love and Responsibility , John Paul II pointed to the impossible possibility of betrothed love. On the one hand, “no person can be transferred or ceded to another. In the natural order, it is oriented towards self-perfection, towards the attainment of an ever greater fullness of existence - which…

May 15, 2013
Uncategorized

Adam at rest

Gregory Beale notes in The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God that the verb used in Genesis 2:15 for “put” is not the expected sim , but the rather rarer yanach , which bears some relation to the verb nacham , which…

May 14, 2013
Uncategorized

Obama’s war

Mark Mazetti’s The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth explains that Obama’s expansion of drone war is linked with his opposition to black sites and Bushian enhanced interrogation. The TNR reviewer writes: “To John Rizzo, the carryover general…

May 13, 2013

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