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Writing

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

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Masculinity

Ringing the Brothel Door

Bruce Marshall once wrote that every young man who rings the bell at a brothel is unconsciously looking for God. While it is not necessarily true that the inward desire of every man is ultimately a thirst for righteousness, it is true that every sin is the disordering of a…

by Garrett SoucyOctober 31, 2023
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Ruth

Work and Gratitude in Ruth

In a previous essay , I argued that the story which begins with Lot and culminates in Ruth’s great-grandson David follows God’s five-fold pattern of creative work as laid out by Jim Jordan: taking something in hand (in this case, the Abrahamic family), restructuring it, distributing the product of labor,…

by Josh JensenOctober 27, 2023
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Books

Men, Marriage, and the Feminine Imperative: A Review of "Men and Marriage"

Gilder, George. Men and Marriage. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2023. 1 By 1973, the hightide of second-wave feminism had flooded the beaches of American culture. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique eroded the shores of traditional female roles by naming and stirring up further domestic discontentment. Kate Millet wrote her dissertation-turned-book,…

by Bill SmithOctober 17, 2023
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Galatians

Get Behind Me, Eliphaz!

The Book of Job is a very tortuous book. The arguments of Job and his friends are shot through with truth and error hopelessly mixed together. Every line of contentious poetry stands locked in deadly battle with every other line. As maddening as this can be for a reader who…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 10, 2023
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Apostle Paul

Before His Conversion, Paul Knew Jesus

More than once in the last 50 years it has occurred to me that Paul might have known Jesus before He appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, but I had never taken up the notion in earnest until recently when I ran into a book by Stanley Porter titled…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 4, 2023
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Acts

Did Peter Found the Church in Rome?

The question in the title is genuine, not polemic. I could be perfectly happy to follow an ancient — and what is regarded as a well-attested — tradition. But I do not feel compelled to follow it simply because it is tradition. I would like to have arguments that Peter…

by Ralph Allan SmithSeptember 26, 2023

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Not Like a Nuptial

In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing , there are two wedding scenes. The first is the wedding of Claudio and Hero, and it's a disaster. Claudio has been convinced by the evil Don John that Hero, his finacee, has been meeting with other men during their engagement. He thinks he’s…

December 23, 2015

Muslims, Christians, and the Gods

The controversy over Wheaton College's Larycia Hawkins, put on administrative leave because she claims that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, took a higher profile with a Washington Post piece by Yale's Miroslav Volf. Volf argues that there is no theological justification for Wheaton's action: “Her suspension is not…

December 23, 2015
Sexuality

Reversing the Revolution

Jeremy Neill is currently bullish on the sexual revolution: “If I were a broker and the sexual revolution were a stock, at this point, I would still be urging my customers to buy shares” ( Public Discourse ). But it won't last forever. No revolution does. Someday, the children of…

December 22, 2015

Articulus stantis et cadentis?

John Webster offers a subtle, careful assessment of the claim that justification is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the article of doctrine on which the church stands or falls ( God Without Measure ). Webster worries that this slogan can “distort exegetical or dogmatic proportion” (168). That happens, he…

December 22, 2015

Restoring Zion

According to Micah, Yahweh begins to restore Zion by gathering the lame, outcasts, afflicted, all who has suffered the invasion of Assyria and been devastated by the nations. Like a shepherd gathering His flock, Yahweh is going to gather the remnant. In Micah, as in other places in the OT,…

December 22, 2015

Mark of the Beast

GB Caird ( Revelation of Saint John , 174-176) offers a neat summary of the options for interpreting the mark. The number appears to be a gematria, a numerical value given to a name, popular in the first century. It is the numerical value of the name “Neron Caesar,” but…

December 21, 2015

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