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

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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
extreme-unction
Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
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American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Literature

Adolescent Humor

Greeks are adolescents; Achilles is an overgrown hyper-sensitive hyper-muscled teenager. A student points out that this applies also to humor: Greek humor is adolescent humor. Consider Aristophanes, the only extant Old Comedian. Case closed.

October 6, 2004

Sermon Outline, October 10

A Second Dream, 1 Kings 9:1-28 INTRODUCTION Solomon?s great building project was the house of Yahweh, which included the temple, the palace, and the government buildings (1 Kings 6-7). But Solomon also built a number of other buildings, fortresses and cities. 1 Kings 9 describes both Yahweh?s response to the…

October 6, 2004

Alter on Deuteronomy 30

Commenting on Deuteronomy 30:9ff in his new translation of the Pentateuch, Robert Alter offers the following comment on “Who will go up for us to the heavens, etc”: “The Deuteronomist, having given God’s teaching a local place and habitation in a text available to all, proceeds to reject the older…

October 5, 2004

Laughter

A guest on Ken Myers’ Mars Hill audio magazine discusses the humor of The Ladykillers . What, he asks, are we laughing at when we see the plots of criminals return on their own heads? He suggests that we are laughing at the folly of humanity, and at the way…

October 5, 2004

Trinity and Quadriga

Doug Jones suggests the following, promising Trinitarian account of the quadriga: Literal - Father (origins) Allegorical - Son (obvious enough) Anagogical - Spirit (completion) That of course leaves the tropological, but this has to do with the formation of the believer. In a Trinitarian perspective, the tropological points to the…

October 5, 2004

Eucharistic Meditation, October 3

1 Kings 8:2 Like the Christian calendar, Israel?s festival calendar did not cover the whole of the year. It began with Passover in the first month of the liturgical year, went through Pentecost in the third month, and climaxed with a series of feasts in the seventh month: the feast…

October 3, 2004

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