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

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Epistemology

A Cheer for the Mystics

Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 2, 2013
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Literature

Shadow and Substance in Shakespeare's Venice

Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…

by Peter LeithartAugust 28, 2013
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Liturgy

Liturgy Traps

[fve]http://vimeo.com/72195198[/fve]

by James B. JordanAugust 26, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Victory Food

In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 21, 2013
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Romans

David's Sin and Israel's Salvation, Part I

Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…

by Mark HorneAugust 20, 2013
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Deuteronomy

You are what you eat

Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 15, 2013

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Divine Feminine

V irginia Ramey Mollenkott is mistaken in her general conclusion to The Divine Feminine , recently reprinted by Wipf & Stock. She writes, “it is perfectly natural for the Bible to contain a vast predominance of masculine God-language, springing as it does out of a deeply patriarchal culture. . .…

January 30, 2015

Up and Down

John ascends to heaven at the bidding of a trumpet-voice (4:1); an angel ascends from the east with the seal of God in his hand (7:2); since and the prayers of the saints ascend to heaven from the censor (8:4); the two witnesses ascend to heaven (11:12, 2x). There are…

January 29, 2015

Practical Thomism

P eter Kreeft’s Practical Theology isn’t quite an introduction to Thomas’s Summa . It’s too repetitive, too selective, to be that. It functions better as an introduction to Thomas— a mystical, jolly Thomas not unlike Chesterton’s. Most of all, it’s just what Kreeft says it is, a tour through the…

January 29, 2015

Love Melts

One of the most profound passages from the Summa quoted in Peter Kreeft’s Practical Theology is this (p. 97), from ST I-II, 289, 5: “Four proximate effects may be ascribed to love, viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these, the first is melting , which is opposed to freezing.…

January 29, 2015
Ecclesiology

Visibility by the Spirit

In one of the essays in Word and Church , John Webster acknowledges that there is a danger of “spiritualizing” the church when the “asymmetry of divine and human action” is emphasized. He thinks the claim that Protestantism is pure subjectivism is a “caricature,” but the charge “identifies a potentially…

January 28, 2015

Catholics and Evangelicals

Gregg Allison is well-positioned to offer an “evangelical assessment” of Roman Catholic Theology & Practice . Now a professor of theology at South Baptist Theological Seminary, he spent a number of years as a Campus Crusade minister at Notre Dame, has interacted with clergy and lay Catholics over many years…

January 28, 2015

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