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

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Romans

Robbing Temples

Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…

by Mark HorneOctober 15, 2024
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Genesis

Regarding Abel’s Offering

Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…

by Scott FairbanksOctober 3, 2024
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Hermeneutics

The Trinity and Cross in Creation

At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…

by James BejonOctober 1, 2024
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Deuteronomy

Axe Heads and Parapets: Legal Edge Cases?

How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…

by Josh JensenSeptember 24, 2024
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Political Theology

The Church Builds the World

1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…

by Gary YoungSeptember 17, 2024
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Matthew

That He would be called a Nazarene

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…

by Lyndon JostSeptember 10, 2024

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God’s War

Israel’s calling was to be the focal point of Yahweh’s battle against sin. This is evident from the context of Abraham’s call in Gen. 12. Yahweh promised earlier He would no longer flood the earth. After Babel the nations have been scattered and He will no longer deal with them…

September 28, 2005
Theology

Grace and evil

As posed by what Jurgen Moltmann has called “protest atheism,” the problem of evil is usually framed as a contradiction within theism, particularly biblical theism. Evil exists: God is either good but impotent to stop evil, or He is omnipotent but malign, such that evil expresses some aspect of his…

September 27, 2005

Music and Hermeneutics

Bach’s little Minuet in G ends, not surprisingly, on G, while the bass plays a descending series of notes that are part of the G-major chord: G, D, and G. With the G, and the fragments of the chord, the Minuet comes to rest. The next to last note in…

September 27, 2005

Sermon Outline, October 2

September 26, 2005

Eye for eye, water for water

Someone has no doubt said this before; I might have said it before: The destruction of Egyptians in the Red Sea is an application of the lex talionis. Egypt killed the children of Israel in the Nile, which turned red with their blood; so Yahweh put Pharaoh and his best…

September 26, 2005
Biblical Studies

Imprecatory Psalms

Kregel has just released John Day’s Crying For Justice , a study of the imprecatory Psalms by a PCA minister in Washington state. It’s the most careful, balanced, and biblical treatment of the subject I’ve seen. Day addresses all the current views on imprecations, the objections lodged against them, and…

September 26, 2005

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