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Writing

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

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American Culture

The Affections of Asbury

Over the past few days, quite the event has developed at Asbury University down in Wilmore, Kentucky. University students have appeared at the Hughes Auditorium to worship and sing praises to God, which has continued for over 90 hours at the time of this writing. There is recent reporting that…

by Charles JacobiFebruary 16, 2023
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Apostle Paul

Paul and Nero

It is well-enough known that Nero was emperor from AD 54 when he was just 16 until his death as a young man of 30 in AD 68, just 14 years later. Paul ministered during most of those 14 years (we are not sure which year he died), accomplishing 3…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 14, 2023
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Apostle Paul

For Me to Live is Christ!

When the apostle Paul says, “For me to live is Christ!” (Philippians 1:21), we do not find it difficult to understand. Paul had been a faithful servant of Christ from the time that Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus (AD 30) and through Ananias told Paul that he…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 9, 2023
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Song of Songs

Bridal Song

I think there’s a layer to the Song of Songs which has been largely unexamined. The Song is about Christ and his church, Yahweh and Israel, the nature of the marriage covenant, and the marriage of the couple in the Song. But while the Song is “of Solomon” (or to…

by Daniel StanleyFebruary 8, 2023
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Biblical Studies

Paul and the Praetorian Guard

In Philippians 1:12-13, Paul informs his beloved brothers in Philippi that his Roman imprisonment — which one would naturally think hindered his ministry and the preaching of the Gospel — actually resulted in the surprising and wonderful progress of the Gospel. Of course, from our perspective 2000 years later and…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 2, 2023
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Biblical Theology

Abraham’s Seed: Heavens, Earth, and Sea Made New

In a recent post , I explored the threefold order of creation—heavens, earth, and sea—and suggested that in Genesis 1 God stamps heaven’s order, his own threefold nature, on the creation, giving earth a trinitarian shape. So what happens to the three-level architecture of creation after Genesis 1? We don’t…

by Josh JensenFebruary 1, 2023

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Apocalypse of Justice

Isaiah 56 begins with an exhortation concerning justice. In parallel phrases, Yahweh instructs Israel to “guard judgment” ( mishpat ) and to “do justice” ( zedaqah ). Along with God’s statutes and commandments, His judgments are to by guarded (Leviticus 18:5, 28; 25:18). “Guarding” judgment suggests a conservative, protective, preserving…

April 11, 2013
Science

String orthodoxy

What’s The Trouble With Physics ? asks Lee Smolin. The answer has something to do with the absence of diversity within the scientific community (xxii): “Science requires a delicate balance between conformity and variety. Because it is so easy to fool ourselves, because the answers are unknown, experts, no matter…

April 11, 2013

Speak, that I may see you

According to Robert Sparling’s account in Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project (145), Moses Mendelssohn considered human beings to be isolated individuals. Language is a tool used by these isolated individuals to connect concepts in our head to things in the world. Speech involves assembling little bundles of signs…

April 11, 2013

Divided Christ?

Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is largely a defense of definite atonement against the hypothetical universalists of his day (see Jonathan Moore’s English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology ). Owen argues that there is an inseparable connection between Christ’s death…

April 10, 2013

The Faith of Christ

I am not convinced by the texts Owen cites in defense of the notion of a “covenant of redemption,” a “compact” between Father and Son “concerning the work to be undertaken, and the issue or event thereof” ( The Death of Death in the Death of Christ ). But the…

April 10, 2013

Bad Cross

Means are designed to serve ends, and John Owen ( The Death of Death in the Death of Christ ) says that the means are of two sorts. Some are good in themselves without any reference to the means. Others “have no good at all in any kind, as in…

April 10, 2013

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