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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

A Daughter of Abraham

Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 16, 2019
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Autonomy

Rehabilitating Autonomy

It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…

by Mark HorneApril 9, 2019
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John

Jesus: Preacher of Paradox

Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 2, 2019
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Esther

The Book of Esther in Covenant History

It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…

by James B. JordanMarch 28, 2019
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How to Worship

A Positive View of Music

It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…

by John AhernMarch 26, 2019
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Biblical Theology

The Reopened Wounds of Jacob

In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…

by Alastair RobertsMarch 19, 2019

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Literature

Roth’s Everyman

Philip Roth, Everyman . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 182 pp. Paperback, $13.00. When Death comes to fetch him in the medieval morality play, Everyman is abandoned by Friends, Kin, Beauty, and Goods. At least Good Works, purified through penance, accompanies him and gives access to heaven. Philip Roth’s Everyman, the…

January 12, 2007
Literature

Roth’s Everyman

Philip Roth, Everyman . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 182 pp. Paperback, $13.00. When Death comes to fetch him in the medieval morality play, Everyman is abandoned by Friends, Kin, Beauty, and Goods. At least Good Works, purified through penance, accompanies him and gives access to heaven. Philip Roth’s Everyman, the…

January 12, 2007
History

End of Christian Europe

When the constitutional treaty for the European Union deleted references to Europe’s Christian heritage, many quite rightly protested this remarkable act of self-induced amnesia. But it was really old news. From the time of the French Revolution, “Europe” was redefined, first in France and then throughout Europe, without reference to…

January 11, 2007

Life and liberty

Jefferson claimed that “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” But this “us” is a very narrow slice of the human race. As Rosenstock-Huessy says, “The obvious weakness of the new-born child, of the old man, of the dependent servant, of the ill or…

January 11, 2007

Messianic measurements

Writing in 1821, John Quincy Adams observed the massive difficulty of introducing metric measurements. Measurement so permeats society that an immediate change in standards would “affect the well-being of man, woman and child, in the community.” He noted, “Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessities of life to…

January 11, 2007
History

Lutheran v. Calvinist

Rosenstock-Huessy points out, “For two hundred years the Lutheran patricians in Frankfurt had prevented even their Calvinist competitors from living in the city. Not until 1780, nine years before the conquest of the Bastille, did the Calvinist merchants get permission to build their church in Frankfurt itself instead of in…

January 11, 2007

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