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

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Ephesians

“Be Holy for I am Holy”

Below is an excerpt from Mark Horne’s manuscript from his forthcoming commentary on Ephesians, specifically on Paul’s reference to Christians as “saints” (Ephesians 1:1). “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul greets…

by Mark HorneMarch 25, 2025
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Exodus

The Perishable in the Ark of the Covenant

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt (2 Chronicles 5:10). When Solomon finally brought the ark of the covenant to the finished temple in…

by Jonathan WhiteMarch 18, 2025
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Exodus

The Stages of a Man’s Life and the Second Table of the Law

In As You Like It , Shakespeare famously describes the seven ages of a man’s life. The division of man’s life into stages is not an invention by Shakespeare, nor merely a common medieval artifice, but an expression of the real journey taken in life. Shakespeare seems to divide up…

by Ryan HandermannMarch 13, 2025
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Christology

The Essence of God’s Image

Is there a chief characteristic which best illumines the image of God in Man? What is it exactly that makes Man as a lens through which to see God? Moses thoughtfully and deliberately escorts the reader to the characteristic showcased above all else: humility. Though much ink has been spilled…

by Ben LoveladyMarch 11, 2025
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Liturgy

Two Ways of Being Liturgical: A Baptist Response to the High Church Exodus

Note: This essay is adapted from a talk delivered at the Howell E. Jackson Committee conference on “Foundations of Baptist Education,” held at Union University, Oct. 4-5, 2024. It’s no secret that evangelicals are converting to High Church traditions, a term I will use to refer to Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism,…

by Ryan SinniMarch 4, 2025
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Icons

Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church

In recent years, there has been a flurry of conversions from Protestant Christianity towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, at least in part due to their supposed early church heritage relative to Protestantism. In the words of Rod Dreher, a former Methodist who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, “Many evangelicals seek…

by John CarpenterFebruary 25, 2025

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First Brick

Mesopotamian temples were sometimes made of bricks, and, according to M. J. Geller (a contribution to Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East ), great care was taken with the first brick, the “auspicious brick.” Geller writes, “When a temple was not built of stone (the usual practice) but of…

July 24, 2014

Sacrifice at Ugarit

In his study of Ritual and Cult at Ugarit , Dennis Pardee discusses the similarities and differences between Ugaritic and Israelite cult. One of the “most striking set of similarities,” he says, “is provided by those terms that are either etymologically related to corresponding Hebrew terms.” The two languages use…

July 24, 2014

Elite Education

In 2008, William Deresiewicz published an article in The American Scholar on “ The Disadvantages of Elite Education .” Drawing on his years of study and graduate teaching at Columbia and his time at Yale, he argued that his education had made him incapable of carrying on a conversation with…

July 23, 2014

Intelligent universe

Frank Vertosick’s Mind: A Unified Theory of Intelligence is out there. He argues that living things are all intelligence, going so far as to suggest that “amoebas may be the smartest things on the planet” and claims that life is intelligence at the molecular level.” In short, “all living things—even…

July 23, 2014

McLuhan and Frye

B.W. Powe’s Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye is a sassy book about two of Canada’s greatest intellectuals, McLuhan the orator and rhetorician and popular guru, Frye the media-shy theorist of literary archetypes. Powe deals with their relationship as colleagues at the University of Toronto, as well as describing their direct…

July 23, 2014

Deluge

Flood stories are widespread in the ancient world, and many studies compare the Babylonian account with the best known account, that of Noah in Genesis. Y.S. Chen’s The Primeval Flood Catastrophe , a revision of the author’s DPhil dissertation, looks at flood traditions from another angle, attempting to trace the…

July 23, 2014

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