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Biblical Theology

Biblical Bestiary and Covenant Creatures, Part 3: Reunion of Man and Beast in Christ

Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 27, 2025
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Matthew

Authority that Heals: Unpacking Matthew 4:18 – 10:4

Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…

by Jonathan SedlakOctober 21, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Biblical Bestiary and Covenant Creatures, Part 2: The Animalistic Dehumanization of Sin

Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 20, 2025
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Song of Songs

Like a Lily Among Thorns: Hailing the Suffering Christ in Canticles

“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…

by Mark BriansOctober 14, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Biblical Bestiary and Covenant Creatures, Part 1: The Shared Spirit of Men and Beasts

Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 13, 2025
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Matthew

Parables of Land and Sea in Matthew 13

Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…

by David TownsendOctober 9, 2025
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Rahab

Andrzej Toczyski's The "Geometrics" of the Rahab Story offers an insightful, multi-layered close reading of Joshua 2. His syntactical analysis of the chapter examines the features of the text that steer the reader's involvement in the story. His aim is to show how Joshua has been and is a "vehicle…

July 6, 2018

Crazy Talk on China

David Goldman is a conservative and a patriot, and is not given to hyperbole. But he describes the current US attitude toward Chinas a "xenophobic" and "ugly," and accuses fellow conservative Victor Davis Hanson of "crazy talk" about China. In response to Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, "Chinese officials are…

July 5, 2018

Paul's Theology of Glory

Haley Goranson Jacob's Conformed to the Image of His Son is an exploration of Paul's theology of glory. Jacob's focus is on the meaning of the phrase in her title, drawn from Romans 8. She finds the several common interpretations of the phrase wanting: Conformity to the Son isn't physical…

July 3, 2018

Bloomsbury in a Secular Age

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed, Charles Taylor argues, the development of the "nova." At that time, "the alternatives open to unbelief are multiplied and enriched." After World War II, these options are diffused to the whole of Western societies, and this produces a "super-nova" ( A Secular…

July 2, 2018

Postmodern Times

In his contribution to The Future of Hope , John Milbank offers a description of postmodernity and suggests ways for the church to respond. Postmodernism may be a thing of the past; we're supposed to be in post-postmodernity nowadays. Still, much of what Milbank describes is still with us, and…

June 28, 2018

Empty Name

The Third Word assumes that we carry the Lord’s name. What it prohibits is bearing, carrying, or lifting that name “in vain” or “emptily.” The word can mean “false,” and bearing the name “falsely” is one of the sins that the Lord prohibits here. That does involve speech. This phrasing…

June 27, 2018

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