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

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Isaiah

The Desert of the Sea

Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…

by Mike BullFebruary 20, 2025
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Isaiah

Jesus Enthroned on the Zodiac

A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…

by Matthew DarbyFebruary 19, 2025
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Matthew

An Overall Chiasm around Six Discourses in the Gospel According to Matthew  

The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…

by Benoit EngelFebruary 13, 2025
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Matthew

Exegesis of the Great Commission

The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 11, 2025
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Lord's Supper

Genuine Paedocommunion

I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 6, 2025
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Twitter and Emotional Sabotage

Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…

by Christian LeithartFebruary 4, 2025

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The argument of Romans

Mark Horne continues his studies in Romans at the Trinity House site.

June 17, 2013
American Religion

Founded on founding

Prior to the founding of America, argues Hannah Arendt in On Revolution , political orders were justified and legitimated by appeal to absolutes: “a divinity, not nature but nature’s God, not reason but a divinely informed reason” gave validity to political order and buttressed political power. Over time, the early…

June 16, 2013
Philosophy

Piety and Nihilism

Theory, Nietzsche argued, arises from the will to “correct existence.” Taking his cues from Nietzsche, Lyotard describes the difference between “pious” and “pagan” theorizing. The former is guilty of Nietzsche’s charge: Since Plato, Lyotard argues, philosophers have attempted to formulate a perfect theory of justice or freedom on the grounds…

June 16, 2013

New Frontiers

In their contribution to American Space/American Place: Geographies of the Contemporary United States , John Agnew and Joanne Sharp describe the context and import of Frederick Jackson Turner’s famed “Frontier Thesis.” Turner wrote in the context of the downturn of the 1890s, and his argument was partly about the future…

June 16, 2013
Economics

Papal economics

Michael Miller’s essay in Christian Theology and Market Economics focuses on “Business as a moral enterprise.” In part, he offers a summary of John Paul II’s teaching on economics and business, especially as expressed in the encyclical Centessimus Annus . As one might expect, John Paul puts business into the…

June 13, 2013

Productive Money

In his contribution to Christian Theology and Market Economics , Stephen Grabill reviews the “pre-Enlightenment” history of economic theory. That is to say, scholastic economics. For many economic historians, the notion of a scholastic economic theory is fallacious, and Exhibit #1 is always the scholastic prohibition of usury, grounded in…

June 13, 2013

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