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

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John

Moses & Jesus: Friends or Foes?

A Look at John 1.17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The above quotation is John 1.17 and comes from the New King James Version of the Bible. It is quite similar to the original translation in the old King James…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Christology

Grace Apart From Sin

And the Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. There is nothing faulty in this translation (New American Standard Bible); Jesus was the recipient of the grace of God His Father from whom He is eternally begotten and with…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Philemon

Flesh and Lord: Philemon 15 & 16

When Paul wrote to Philemon asking him to forgive his runaway slave, Onesimus, he gave Philemon an interesting perspective on how God used Onesimus’ action to bring about his conversion: For perhaps he was for this reason parted from you for a while, that you should have him back forever,…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Covenant

Covenant of Works?

Adam’s good works were acceptable to God. He could do them and God would receive them. Our own “good” works, our very best works, require the forgiveness of God and the continual intercession of Jesus Christ due to their impurity. Thus, it is appropriate to describe God’s covenant with Adam…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Mark

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit?

In Mark’s Gospel we read: “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons’” (3.22). Jesus replied in part, “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Ecclesiology

A Visionary Ecclesiology

A Primer for Church Members on the Nature and Functions of the Body of Christ Introductory Note: I intend this paper to serve as something of a “user’s guide” for church members, though church leaders may also find it valuable in developing vision statements for their local bodies. I have…

by Rich LuskJune 5, 2002

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Heroic Hobbits again

My friend John Barach pointed me to an interview with Peter Jackson in which Jackson explained the reasons for the change in the ending of the LOTR. Jackson did not, he claims, want to make Frodo heroic; he wanted to leave Frodo with the sense that he failed. Jackson said,…

January 9, 2013

Trinity House: A Student Perspective

In the two years I spent in graduate studies with Peter Leithart at New Saint Andrews College, he taught me how to be a good student by being a good student himself. Dr. Leithart read texts with us charitably and patiently. He fully engaged his imagination in reading the Bible…

January 9, 2013

Communal Nature

Jenson ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God (Systematic Theology (Oxford Hardcover)) (Vol 1) , 138-9) summarizes how “the christological concept of ‘nature’ has swung back and forth between unhelpful abstraction, as it denoted merely the list of attributes a god or human being must have, and disastrous concretion,…

January 8, 2013

Touching Jesus

We address Jesus, Jenson argues, personally, as “human beings to a human being” ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God (Systematic Theology (Oxford Hardcover)) (Vol 1) , 137 ). But this man that we address has died and risen, and therefore “we see and hear and touch him in…

January 7, 2013

Leo and his Tome

Summarizing the various Christologies that led to Chalcedon, Jenson ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God (Systematic Theology (Oxford Hardcover)) (Vol 1) , 130-3) points to the fateful influence of Leo’s Tome. It affirms the “unobjectionable” claim that Jesus is “true God” and “true man,” but then adds: “Each…

January 7, 2013

Schleiermacher’s Christology redux

Pannenberg ( Jesus - God and Man (scm classics) , 285 ) offers a more sympathetic summary of Schleiermacher’s Christology than I have done. He agrees that Schleiermacher’s definition of “nature” as “a limited being existing in opposition to others” doesn’t fly: It “does not meet the patristic doctrine, since…

January 7, 2013

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