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Writing

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

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Gatekeepers

1 Chronicles 9:1 seems to bring the genealogies of 1 Chronicles to an end. The Chronicler has recorded the genealogy of the human race from Adam, focusing on the descendants of Abraham through Jacob. Summing it all up, he says, “So all Israel was enrolled by genealogies; and behold, they…

by Peter LeithartJune 21, 2016
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Trinity

Are the Divine Persons Persons?

The “personalist” understanding of the Trinity, articulated most influentially in the work of John Zizioulas, has fallen on hard times. Recent scholars have attacked Zizioulas’s idea that Cappadocian Trinitarianism represented an ontological revolution, hammering on the distinction between divine and human personhood. Michel Barnes’s conclusion is the most drastic of…

by Peter LeithartJune 16, 2016
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Architecture

On Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology is often defined as the historical unfolding of God’s revelation, or of God’s revelation and of the history of his covenantal redemption and transformation of humanity and the world. In practice, Biblical Theology is usually broader than this, and also includes the study of literary structure and of…

by James B. JordanJune 14, 2016
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Humor

Wise Laughter

We are made to be happy. Created to enter into the eternal joy of God, our whole being inclines to that end, but the fallen world has put forth barriers and by our own sin we bar ourselves from that endless delight, and death blinds us to that reality. Yet…

by Remy WilkinsJune 7, 2016
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Liturgy

Why Theopolis? Take Two

At the end of Revelation, John sees the heavenly city descending to earth. The city shines with the brilliance of God's glory, which lightens the nations, so that kings bring their glory to the city. This is not a vision of the final new heaven and new earth. It's a…

by Peter LeithartJune 2, 2016
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Attributes of God

How Can We Talk About God?

“No one has ever seen God,” writes John (John 1:18). If this is the case, then how can we speak about God? Some people say we actually cannot. Or at least we cannot speak about God positively, i.e. who He is. We can only say who or what God is…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 31, 2016

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Atonement

Not Images

Jenson admits in an essay on atonement in Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics that no single theory of atonement has won consensus. Some, he writes, “make a virtue of this proliferation of proposals and the absence of form or informal consensus around any one of them; others see in it a…

August 15, 2014

Nyssa on Divine Personhood

Thomas McCall acknowledegs in his Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? that patristic and medieval writers weren’t “fond of such expressions as ‘center of consciousness and will,’” but argues that “it is not at all difficult to find language that coheres well” with such a formulation (238). He summarizes an argument from…

August 14, 2014

Evangelical Sex

Amy DeRogatis begins her study of Evangelical ideals of sex, Saving Sex , by recounting Texas Pastor Ed Young’s 2012 “bed-in,” which he held on the roof of Fellowship Church. With his wife, he spent 24 hours live-streaming interviews urging Evangelicals to have sex more often. Young considers himself a…

August 14, 2014

Extreme

Extreme by Emma Barrett and Paul Martin “examines extraordinary human endeavour and the psychological qualities that underpin it.” The authors are interested in assessing the psychological benefits and damage brought on by encounters with extreme environments - mountains, the deep ocean - and extreme activities like cave diving. They want…

August 14, 2014

Living Toward Death

One of the crucial differences is the role of death. According to Heidel ( Babylonian Genesis , 137-8), “The destructive power of death, according to Babylonian and Assyrian speculations, extended not only over mankind and over plant and animal life but even over the gods. While the proverbially immortal gods…

August 14, 2014

Numismatic Noah

Alexander Heidel ( Babylonian Genesis , 235) notes that the word for “ark” in Greek accounts of the flood is not the normal word for boat but kibotos , a chest or coffer. This term was used to distinguish the Phrygian (Syrian) city of Apamea from other cities of the…

August 14, 2014

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