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Writing

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

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Apostle Paul

Jonah’s Pauline Move: Finding Mercy for Gentiles in Texts about Mercy for Israel

Jonah is Paul’s typological opposite. Indeed, in the whole Old Testament, it would be difficult to find a more perfect foil to Paul than Jonah. Whereas Paul crosses the sea to enact God’s saving purposes for the Gentiles, Jonah crosses the sea to avoid bringing Gentiles God’s mercy. For that…

by Josh JensenJanuary 11, 2024
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Family

A House for Me

Years ago, I realized that if my children wanted to feel like their house was a home, I needed to be intentional about making our physical shelter a place of spiritual refuge. I began to see the Holy Spirit as the indwelling person of the Trinity—the one who makes His…

by Mandi GerthJanuary 9, 2024
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Charity

On Parrhesia and Gospel Witness

When the crowds encircle Christ in Solomon’s Porch during the Festival of Dedication, they charge him: “tell us boldly who you are!” 1 They do not draw-up to him to with excited anticipation as they did earlier in the Gospel, 2 instead they flank him like a gang of wolves.…

by Mark BriansJanuary 4, 2024
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Deuteronomy

Misunderstanding Moses

1 In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, Moses wrote: When Yahweh your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations…

by Ralph Allan SmithJanuary 3, 2024
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Advent

40 Theses on Christmas

Every Advent witnesses the gruesome reanimation of the voice that whispers “you know , Christmas is just a pagan holiday…” with that sort of conversational ellipsis that does not so much invite further reflection but halts and forecloses it. The claims are several and equally spurious: Jesus wasn’t born on…

by Mark BriansDecember 26, 2023
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Genesis

The Twelve Trials of Abraham

Abraham's life in Genesis is a series of trials. He travels hundreds of miles from his family into a new land, flees from a famine into the hands of a king who takes his wife, and after returning, has to rescue his brother from a war. He's involved with two…

by Donald LinnemeyerDecember 26, 2023

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Jesus’ Table Practices

Joel Green points out that the TEXT of Luke actually displays the table practices of Jesus. In Luke 14, the scene is a meal in the home of a leading Pharisee, yet several people show up that we don’t expect to be at the home of a leading Pharisee: Jesus,…

January 11, 2004

Jesus’ Table Practices

Joel Green points out that the TEXT of Luke actually displays the table practices of Jesus. In Luke 14, the scene is a meal in the home of a leading Pharisee, yet several people show up that we don’t expect to be at the home of a leading Pharisee: Jesus,…

January 11, 2004
Theology

No Better Argument

In his splendid Beauty of the Infinite (about which more later), David Hart says something to the effect that “the church has no argument deeper or more basic than Jesus.” That is a remarkably concise way of undercutting a certain kind of theology, one that attempts to establish some kind…

January 10, 2004

Sermon Outline, January 11

Sermon outline, January 11: Table Talk, Luke 14:1-35 INTRODUCTION Meals were central to Jesus’ ministry. He comes “eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34). His meals are not just for refreshment, but are opportunities for teaching and one of Jesus’ key “methods” for forming a new Israel. The people He eats with,…

January 8, 2004
Theology

Miles on God

In the midst of saying some very odd and wacky things, Jack Miles does have some insights to offer in his God: A Biography . Most especially, there’s his notion that the unity of the Bible (he’s dealing with the OT) lies in the fact that it has a single…

January 8, 2004
Literature

Further Thoughts from Steiner

Further thoughts from Steiner, and also inspired by Steiner: 1) The dilemma of tragic drama in the modern world, he claims, was that the two main “ideologies” available (at the time of writing, 1961) are Marxism and Christianity, both of which are “anti-tragic.” 2) Steiner points out that Rousseau, with…

January 7, 2004

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