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

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Authority

Eldership and Maturity, (Part 2)

(continued from previous issue) Between 30 and 50 What did the Levites do between age 30 and 50? Numbers 4 shows us that they carried the house of God on their shoulders. Lifting up the Lord is an image of worship in the Bible, and David’s restructuring of the Levites…

by James B. JordanJuly 8, 1995
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Romans

The Great Hangover, Parts 1-2

When God created the world, He created two lands: the Throne-land of Eden (entered through the sanctuary-garden, the Garden of Eden), and the Outlying Lands, such as the lands of Havilah and Cush. This essentially bi-polar world is the world of the Old Creation, and it continued to exist until…

by James B. JordanJuly 5, 1995
Architecture

Concerning Colors, Architecture, and Sacraments

Color is inescapable, except for those who are color blind. In our church architecture, we either employ color schemes that are helpful to worship, or we employ color schemes that are not helpful. Of course, this assertion merely begs the question: What color schemes are most helpful. God showed interest…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1995
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Baptism

Jesus’ Baptism Into Priesthood

As I noted in an earlier article in Rite Reasons , the Church Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine all claimed that baptism inducts the baptized person into membership in the royal priesthood of the church, and Thomas Aquinas said that baptism, by imprinting an indelible “character” on the soul, confers…

by Peter LeithartMay 26, 1995
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Baptism

Renewing Circumcision

When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…

by Peter LeithartMay 14, 1995
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Daniel

A Correction on Daniel 7

In my Preliminary Commentary on Daniel , which many of you have obtained, I argued in chapter 13 that the four monsters called up from the sea by the evangelistic work of the four winds (the saints) represented the deep hatred of God that evangelistic work brings to the fore…

by James B. JordanMay 7, 1995

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Ocularity and the ancients

A TLS reviewer examines what sounds like a fascinating book on Plato and Aristotle’s appropriation of “theoria” (originally referring to spectators who watch the Olympics and other festivals in a kind of “sacralized spectating”). Along the way, the reviewer comments on recent criticisms of the “spectator theory of knowledge” often…

March 6, 2006

Eucharistic meditation, first lent

2 Kings 14:25: Jeroboam restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-Hepher.…

March 5, 2006

Exhortation, First Sunday of Lent

What is the cross? Originally a Persian invention, crucifixion became a Roman method of execution, reserved for slaves and for the most dangerous political criminals. Josephus described it as the “most wretched of deaths,” as a victim slowly suffocated with the weight of his own body. One writer describes crucified…

March 5, 2006
Philosophy

Beginnings

A man went searching for the beginning of the road he was traveling. He traced his footsteps back the way he had come, until he came to where he started. But the beginning of the road was not a beginning. Something lay on the far side of the road’s beginning,…

March 4, 2006
Philosophy

Foucault on man

Another discarded fragment. Perhaps the best-known of the postmodern theories of the self is that of Michel Foucault. According to Foucault, “man” is an invention of the recent past, of the modern world. Contrary to popular opinion, “man” has not been the subject of investigation since the time of the…

March 4, 2006

Bultmannian irony

Bultmann says that we moderns who can flick on electric lights cannot believe in the dichotomous anthropology of the New Testament, which distinguishes absolutely between the spiritual core of the self and the physical body. Problem is, that’s not the New Testament anthropology. In fact, it’s ironically the product of…

March 4, 2006

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