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Writing

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

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Deuteronomy

Allusive Torah

In the first part of this essay, I argued that the story of the covenant is what unifies and grounds the laws in the book of Deuteronomy. In the third section of this essay, as part of my argument that Deuteronomy 14:1-21 forms a distinct pericope, I claimed that these…

by Ralph Allan SmithJuly 22, 2013
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Economics

So You Wanna Be Rich?

Paul ends 1 Timothy with convicting warnings about the temptations of wealth and the danger of pursuing wealth. Godliness involves contentment and gratitude for the basics – food and clothing (1 Timothy 6:8). To reinforce the point, Paul reminds Timothy that we came into the world without anything, which is…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 2013
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Catholicism

The Festival and the Mass

Like Marx himself, the Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre was a firm believer in the dictum that “the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism,” though he dissented from Marx’s prior claim that the criticism of religion is essentially complete. He includes a vicious, sarcastic, Marxist diatribe against the…

by Peter LeithartJuly 15, 2013
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Theopolis News

Biblical Horizons Summer Conference

This week, Trinity House fellows James Jordan, Jeff Meyers, Rich Bledsoe, and Peter Leithart will be lecturing in Niceville, Florida, at the Biblical Horizons Summer Conference. Fore more information, check the Biblical Horizons web site.

by Peter LeithartJuly 15, 2013
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Isaiah

Combustible God

Fire seems to be a motif in Isaiah 6. The chapter opens “in the year that king Uzziah died,” and we know that Uzziah died a leper because he tried to burn incense in the temple against the law of God. And in this context, in the year king Uzziah…

by Daniel StanleyJuly 10, 2013
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Biblical Studies

Rehabilitating the Quadriga

According to the medieval theory of the "Quadriga" or the "fourfold sense" of Scripture, each passage of Scripture has four dimensions of meaning. Protestants generally cast a suspicious eye on this "method" of reading. That's a mistake. It's a handy guide to the questions we should always ask as we…

by Peter LeithartJuly 8, 2013

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American Religion

One Nation Under God

The thesis of Kevin Kruse's One Nation Under God is that “the postwar revolution in America's religious identity had its roots not in the foreign policy panic of the 1950s but rather in the domestic politics of the 1930s and early 1940s. Decades before Eisenhower's inaugural prayers, corporate titans enlisted…

May 15, 2015

Inescapable Supersession?

Matthew Levering presents a typically careful, judicious summary of David Novak's analysis of supersessionism in his Christian-Jewish Dialogue and the Life of Wisdom . Along the way he points out (following Novak) that even Christian rejection of “harsh supersessionism” (which claims that Jews have no continuing covenantal status) doesn't overcome…

May 14, 2015

Nature, Culture, and the Lines Between

In a contribution to Judaism and Christianity , Evan Zuesse questions how H. Richard Niebuhr's analysis of Christ and culture might apply to Judaism. While he recognizes that Jewish responses to culture fit roughly into Niebuhr's categories, he finds that the whole set-up doesn't stand up to close analysis: “if…

May 14, 2015

In the Midst of Angels

Yahweh descends on Sinai surrounded by a fiery cloud, full of thunder and lightning. When we get a closer look at the cloud, as we do in Ezekiel, we realize that it is a cloud of angels. Yahweh moves about surrounded by the fiery horses and chariots of His hosts.…

May 14, 2015

Capitalizing on Gay Marriage

Patrick Deneen nails it next door at the main First Things site. Read the whole article, but here are a few money quote:s “The decision by corporate leaders to take a political stand over a controversial issue is therefore of great interest. Corporations and business leaders almost always avoid political…

May 14, 2015

Branded

In his commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians , JB Lightfoot ran through the possible meanings of ta sitgmata , the “brand marks of Christ” that Paul says he bore (Galatians 6:17). Stigmata marked “domestic slaves. With these, however, branding was not usual, at least among Greeks and…

May 13, 2015

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