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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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Pilgrimage of nations

Kelly Kapic ( God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity , 206-8) explains the various motivations of Pal’s Collection for the saints in Jerusalem: to relieve poverty, to unify the churchto share God’s grace together. There was also an eschatological motivation: “While it is nowhere stated…

August 2, 2012

Apostolic priests

In a brief discussion of tithing, Kapic ( God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity , 153) notes that the Levites received tithes from the people and then tithed the tithe to the priests “who had no other means of income.” That is somewhat overstated, since…

August 1, 2012

True King

In his excellent study of God’s generosity ( God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity , 134-5), Kelly Kapic summarizes the “righteousness” of Job: “In Job 29:1-25 this man describes, in his own words, what his righteousness actually looked like. Above all, we find that Job’s…

August 1, 2012
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Reciprocity

In his introduction to Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (p. 5), Richard Seaford argues that the “debate about the extent to which virtues in Homer are cooperative (such as justice and generosity) or competitive (such as individual prowess in war)” is wrong-headed. Seaford claims that “this distinction may obstruct our understanding…

August 1, 2012

Symbolic Violence

John Thompson explains Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence in his introduction to Language and Symbolic Power : “Instead of analyzing the exchange of gifts in terms of a formal structure of reciprocity, in the manner of Lévi–Strauss, Bourdieu views it as a mechanism through which power is exercised and…

August 1, 2012

Nazilympics

In his Megaevents and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture , Maurice Roche has a scathing review of the International Olympic Committee’s interactions with the Nazis at the Berlin Olympics in 1936: “The IOC collaborated with the Nazi government in allowing what was predictably a major…

July 31, 2012

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