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

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Apostle Paul

Paul in Prison: Ephesus or Rome?

In the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to hardships in his ministry in Asia, specifically Ephesus (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 15:32; 2 Corinthians 1:8; 4:8-12; 6:4-5; 11:23-25). However, the multiple imprisonments Paul mentions are not fully reflected in Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry — Luke only records a…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 15, 2022
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Epistemology

Vertical Living

After all these months pondering integration, I have come to the point of believing that the dynamic of integration just is the real at its heart. Everything that is real or comes to be real is a dynamo of integrative coherence. I also believe it is true that the real…

by Esther Lightcap MeekFebruary 1, 2022
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Books

Tom Holland and the Liberating Power of Christianity

Have you heard of Tom Holland? Not the young Tom Holland of Spiderman fame. No doubt you’ve heard of him. I’m referring to the middle age Oxford-trained historian who recently wrote Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind . (Both Hollands are British, so you’ll be forgiven for confusing them.)…

by Gerald HiestandJanuary 25, 2022
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Biblical Horizons

"Do This!"

This article was originally published in 1990. (The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what…

by James B. JordanJanuary 19, 2022
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American Culture

The Dominion Trap

This article was originally published in 1990. In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on…

by James B. JordanJanuary 13, 2022
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Biblical Studies

Will Few Be Saved?

On several occasions the gospels record Jesus teaching that only a few will be saved (Matthew 7:14, Matthew 22:14, and Luke 13:23). Careful readers of Scripture should begin to wrestle with how these passages found in the gospels fit together with other passages that teach that many will be saved…

by Manny LucasJanuary 11, 2022

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Eucharist

Apotheosis of Consumerism

Though the presence of Christ has been central to Eucharistic theology, Thomas O'Loughlin ( The Eucharist ) argues that in Tridentine Catholicism”the dominant thinking about the event of physical engagement with the Eucharist was imagined in terms of a sacred commodity. The priest ‘confected' the Eucharist, it was reserved for…

May 6, 2015

Victorian Forgiveness

Early in his Forgiveness in Victorian Literature , Richard Gibson quotes Sarah Beckwith's observation that “promising and forgiving [are] acts of making community” (27). Gibson draws on Hannah Arendt's analysis to fill out the picture. Promises reduce the unpredictability of the future, while “forgiveness confronts the crisis of the past.…

May 6, 2015
Jane Austen

Jane Austen's Names

Margaret Doody's Jane Austen's Names is a treasure chest. On the assumption that “an artist cannot do anything slovenly,” Doody explores the historical significance of the real place names that appear in Austen's novels, teases out the puns in the characters' names, suggests that Austen was sensitive to the ethnic…

May 6, 2015

Evangelizing Metaphysics

Key terms of ancient philosophy are rare or entirely absent in the New Testament. Aristotle considered the study of causes ( aitia ) and principles ( archai ) to be the subject matter of first philosophy ( Metaphysics A.1,981b28), and he defines metaphysics as the study “of the things which…

May 6, 2015

Nature and Equality

Norberto Bobbio ( Left and Right ) claims that left and right are different because of their different evaluations of equality. He starts from the uncontroversial fact that people are equal in certain respects, unequal in others, and claims that “We can then correctly define as egalitarians those who ,…

May 5, 2015

Difference Principle

John Rawls's notion of “difference principle” is an alternative to a meritocratic regime, but it is also different from equality of result. As Michael Sandell explains in Liberalism and the Limits of Justice , Rawls denies that the difference principle eliminates distinctions between persons. The difference principle aims at the…

May 5, 2015

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