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Writing

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

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Masculinity

Ringing the Brothel Door

Bruce Marshall once wrote that every young man who rings the bell at a brothel is unconsciously looking for God. While it is not necessarily true that the inward desire of every man is ultimately a thirst for righteousness, it is true that every sin is the disordering of a…

by Garrett SoucyOctober 31, 2023
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Ruth

Work and Gratitude in Ruth

In a previous essay , I argued that the story which begins with Lot and culminates in Ruth’s great-grandson David follows God’s five-fold pattern of creative work as laid out by Jim Jordan: taking something in hand (in this case, the Abrahamic family), restructuring it, distributing the product of labor,…

by Josh JensenOctober 27, 2023
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Books

Men, Marriage, and the Feminine Imperative: A Review of "Men and Marriage"

Gilder, George. Men and Marriage. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2023. 1 By 1973, the hightide of second-wave feminism had flooded the beaches of American culture. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique eroded the shores of traditional female roles by naming and stirring up further domestic discontentment. Kate Millet wrote her dissertation-turned-book,…

by Bill SmithOctober 17, 2023
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Galatians

Get Behind Me, Eliphaz!

The Book of Job is a very tortuous book. The arguments of Job and his friends are shot through with truth and error hopelessly mixed together. Every line of contentious poetry stands locked in deadly battle with every other line. As maddening as this can be for a reader who…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 10, 2023
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Apostle Paul

Before His Conversion, Paul Knew Jesus

More than once in the last 50 years it has occurred to me that Paul might have known Jesus before He appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, but I had never taken up the notion in earnest until recently when I ran into a book by Stanley Porter titled…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 4, 2023
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Acts

Did Peter Found the Church in Rome?

The question in the title is genuine, not polemic. I could be perfectly happy to follow an ancient — and what is regarded as a well-attested — tradition. But I do not feel compelled to follow it simply because it is tradition. I would like to have arguments that Peter…

by Ralph Allan SmithSeptember 26, 2023

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Faith, Works, Reward

In an analysis of the work of Meredith Kline, John Frame offers this neat formulation of the relation of faith, works, and reward: “Today we receive salvation by faith alone, apart from works. But that faith must be a living, working faith, if it is true faith (Jms. 2:14-26). As…

April 6, 2013

Marketization of politics

William Cavanaugh’s presentation at the Wheaton Theology Conference was, as one would expect, challenging and provocative. He asked questions about corporate persons in contemporary law, tracing the background of the idea in the Bible and in medieval thought, but focusing attention on the business corporation as corporate person in market…

April 6, 2013
Politics

Mercy and Power

Anglican Archbishop David Gitari ended his talk at the Wheaton Theology Conference with a neat illustration of the difference between doing mercy and confronting power. He used the example of a factory where many workers were injured. Wanting to help, a church arranged to have an ambulance on call at…

April 6, 2013

Crucifiable cruciformity

Everyone today wants to talk about the cruciformity of Christian politics. Much to the good there. But, despite narrative theology and NT Wright and everything, there’s an odd abstraction of the cross from the rest of the gospel narrative. Cruciform politics is often translated as a politics of sympathy and…

April 6, 2013

Educated in love

Spirit - that is, the human person - cannot be conceived simply by the sexual union of a man and woman. It is “the work of God Himself” ( Love and Responsibility , 55). Sex thus participates in God’s ongoing creation of persons, a creation that must, John Paul II…

April 4, 2013

Sexual frui

In spite of its intentions, what John Paul II calls “sexual puritanism” or “rigorism” ends up cozy with utilitarianism, the notion that persons can be used as means to achieve certain egocentric ends ( Love and Responsibility ). According to the “puritanical” view, “the Creator Himself uses persons as means…

April 4, 2013

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