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Biblical Theology

Biblical Bestiary and Covenant Creatures, Part 3: Reunion of Man and Beast in Christ

Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 27, 2025
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Matthew

Authority that Heals: Unpacking Matthew 4:18 – 10:4

Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…

by Jonathan SedlakOctober 21, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Biblical Bestiary and Covenant Creatures, Part 2: The Animalistic Dehumanization of Sin

Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 20, 2025
screen-shot-2025-10-14-at-7-34-36-am
Song of Songs

Like a Lily Among Thorns: Hailing the Suffering Christ in Canticles

“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…

by Mark BriansOctober 14, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Biblical Bestiary and Covenant Creatures, Part 1: The Shared Spirit of Men and Beasts

Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 13, 2025
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Matthew

Parables of Land and Sea in Matthew 13

Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…

by David TownsendOctober 9, 2025
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Neuhaus’s “Pattern of defiance”

I’m just now getting around to looking at Damon Linker’s expose book on the Theocons , so’s I can find out what those First Things folks are really like. I discover that Neuhaus early developed a “pattern of defiance.” Evidence? Oh, you would ask. Well, Neuhaus said his father was…

February 15, 2007

Neuhaus’s “Pattern of defiance”

I’m just now getting around to looking at Damon Linker’s expose book on the Theocons , so’s I can find out what those First Things folks are really like. I discover that Neuhaus early developed a “pattern of defiance.” Evidence? Oh, you would ask. Well, Neuhaus said his father was…

February 15, 2007

Trinitarian concursus

In the latest IJST , Paul Nimmo of Cambridge discusses Barth’s doctrine of divine concursus, contesting the idea (advanced by George Hunsinger among others) that Barth’s concursus doctrine is “Chalcedonian.” Early in the article, he summarizes Barth’s treatment in the Church Dogmatics . As one would expect, Barth wants to…

February 15, 2007

The typology of 2 John

John, the elder, addresses a “chosen Lady,” warning her and her children about “deceivers” who might try to win them over. John especially wants to draw the line at table fellowship: Don’t eat with the deceiver, John tells the Lady. Sound familiar? It’s Eden, but not quite Eden. After all,…

February 15, 2007
Theology

Law as gospel

I recently saw the film, The End of the Spear , the story of Nate Saint and Jim Eliot’s mission to Ecuador. After the tribe spears the missionaries, one of the women from the tribe, who had left to live with the missionaries some years before, returns home to announce…

February 15, 2007

Fourfold truth

John uses the word “truth” four times in the opening three verses of 2 John. Truth is fourfold, stretching out to the four corners of the earth. It also seems possible to take “truth” here, at least at a secondary level, as a reference to Christ - especially in the…

February 15, 2007

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