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Writing

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

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Leviticus

Cathedral Offerings

Interwoven within Leviticus’ opening offerings is a redemptive storyline meant to be rehearsed. Each offering makes a particular contribution to the retelling of the Exodus deliverance. Like learning a dance, Israel’s opening rituals recount their steps from Egypt to Sinai in a fashion meant to perpetually imprint its experience on…

by Ben LoveladyMay 15, 2025
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Mark

Mark 7 in Color

In Capernaum, the leaders of Israel questioned Jesus in their hearts. Beside the sea, they questioned his disciples about their rabbi’s practices. They challenged Jesus in the grain fields, sought to trap him in the synagogue, tried to seize him, thinking he was mad, and accused him of being possessed.…

by George EdemaMay 13, 2025
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Psalm-singing

Rascals in a Cave

An essay on ministry taken from recent notes for a ‘solemn charge’ I gave our pastoral team (together with their spouses) at All Saints Honolulu, a church-plant that enters its fifth year. I. After receiving the sword of Goliath from Ahimelech at Nob, and after fleeing first to and then…

by Mark BriansMay 6, 2025
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Biblical Theology

A Theology of Tombs: Burial and the Promises of God

When thinking about the book of Genesis, we often think of beginnings, the beginning of the world, humanity, the elect people of God. The word “genesis” itself means beginning. Genesis is also known as the book of promises. Genesis contains three of the major Old Testament covenants: Adamic, Noahic and…

by Matthew DarbyApril 30, 2025
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Luke

Mountain, Tomb, Table: Moses and Elijah as the First Witnesses at the Empty Tomb

A Theological and Typological Commentary on Luke 24:4 In Luke 24:4, we are told that as the women arrived at the tomb on Easter morning, they encountered “two men in dazzling apparel” standing beside them. This description, on its own, may not immediately provoke questions. The traditional interpretation identifies these…

by Bruce GrimmetApril 29, 2025
Acts

Easter Meditation (Part 2)

For Part 1, click HERE . The four Gospel accounts give us their strange and wonderful historical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. The rest of the New Testament, either explicitly or by suggestion, refers to the resurrection in every book except 3 John. Unlike the Gospel accounts, however, most…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 22, 2025

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Virtues of Tobacco

Writing in the 1610s, William Barclay pointed to the astonishing paradoxical benefits of smoking: “Tobacco is hote, because it hath acrimonie; yet, it is cold because it is narcoticke and stupefactiue, it maketh drunken, and refresheth, it maketh hungrie and filleth, it maketh thirstie and quencheth thirst. Finalie, to bring…

March 9, 2005
Literature

Sacred and Secular Literature

Michael D. Hurley has a fine review of Nicholas Boyle’s Sacred and Secular Scriptures: A Catholic Approach to Literature in the Feb 11 issue of TLS . While Boyle contests the efforts of Herder and Schleiermacher to reduce “Word to word,” he still emphasizes the continuity between the Bible and…

March 9, 2005

Jesus and Uncleanness Laws

Jesus came to fulfill the law. Jesus consistently flouted the ceremonial laws of cleanliness. How can we put these two statements together? Perhaps the “uncleanness” laws are misnamed. The intention of the laws is not to invent new ways to be estranged and exiled from God. The heart of the…

March 8, 2005
Theology

Waiting

A student perceptively suggests that first-century Jews had become so attached to waiting for the Messiah that they could not bring themselves to acknowledge the fulfillment of their hopes. Against all that the prophets had taught, they had become tragic, and unfulfilled longings had become (and still remain) the essence…

March 8, 2005

Exhortation, March 6

God has enemies. You need only pick up the Psalter to discover this. ?The enemies of Yahweh will be like the glory of the pastures, they vanish ?Elike smoke they vanish away?E(Psalm 37). ?Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned obedience to You?E(Ps 66). ?Let…

March 6, 2005
Theology

More on Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite

Part 1: Dionysus against the Crucified. Section 1: City and the Wastes. Hart raises the question, What is postmodernism? And he answers by citing Milbank?s claim that postmodern French philosophers, for all their differences, are united in an ?ontology of violence.?EBeginning from a radical historicism and perspectivism, postmodernists move to…

March 3, 2005

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