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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
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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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History

Shakespeare’s audience

Arthur F. Kinney writes that “Until very recently - and in some scholarly circles still today - it has been argued that the working class - the journeymen, apprentices, and men and women servants sometimes known as subalterns - had neither the money nor the liberty to attend plays. There…

October 18, 2006
History

Shakespeare’s audience

Arthur F. Kinney writes that “Until very recently - and in some scholarly circles still today - it has been argued that the working class - the journeymen, apprentices, and men and women servants sometimes known as subalterns - had neither the money nor the liberty to attend plays. There…

October 18, 2006
Literature

Shakespeare’s bawdy

A couple of selections from Eric Partridge’s book on the bawdy in Shakespeare. “Flatulence was, in Shakespeare’s day, the source and the target of humour and wit among all classes: nowadays, its popularity as a subject is, in the main, confined to the lower and lower-middle classes and to morons…

October 18, 2006
Literature

Shakespeare’s bawdy

A couple of selections from Eric Partridge’s book on the bawdy in Shakespeare. “Flatulence was, in Shakespeare’s day, the source and the target of humour and wit among all classes: nowadays, its popularity as a subject is, in the main, confined to the lower and lower-middle classes and to morons…

October 18, 2006
History

Revolution and Papal Supremacy

Michael Burleigh details the decimation of the bishoprics and clergy in Franch during the Revolution. This had the unintended consequence of raising the profile of the Pope: Without local or regional authorities to look to, the remaining French clergy looked all the way to Rome: “Ineluctably, the papacy assumed a…

October 18, 2006
Music

Sacred music

Levine again: The German pianist Hans von Bulow toured the US in 1876. At one location, he was preceded by Emma Thursby who sant Schubert and Schumann, and then a popular song by Franz Abt: “Von Bulow’s ‘rage knew no bound’ at this ‘desecration’ of a program composed of the…

October 17, 2006

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