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Writing

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

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Hebrews

The Unseen Things

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). The famous definition of faith with which the eleventh chapter of Hebrews opens has received a number of different interpretations. The crux of the problem is the interpretation of the words translated in…

by Peter LeithartJune 26, 2018
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John

The Gospel of John, Friendship, and the Homoerotic

This essay is an exploration of one element of the final of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John. My thesis is that the Gospel of John answers the issue of "friendship" being a homoerotic category. It challenges the "Greek Way of Love and Friendship" 1 It is indeed the…

by Richard BledsoeJune 21, 2018
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Matthew

Building the Church

"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…

by Peter LeithartJune 19, 2018
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Matthew

Funerals and Flutes

Matthew 8-9 records three clusters of miracles, interspersed with snatches of Jesus’ teaching about various aspects of discipleship. Just as the Sermon on the Mount displays the authority of Jesus’ Word in teaching, these chapters display the authority of Jesus’ Word over sickness, uncleanness, the creation, demons, and death. In…

by Peter LeithartJune 14, 2018
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Biblical Theology

The Ecclesiology of Wells

The association of women and wells in the Scriptures has long been noted by theologians, a symbolism closely connected to marriage which begins in Genesis and climaxes in Revelation. There is a lesson drawn in the water of wells that I’d like to explore, but before that I must trace…

by Remy WilkinsJune 12, 2018
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Proverbs

Was Solomon Paleo? Primal Reality and the Wisdom of Proverbs

Of course, since the Israelites had agriculture, Solomon was not paleolithic as that term is used today. But "paleo" is simply a prefix meaning old or previous , the opposite of "neo." In that sense, I wonder if we might understand Solomon better if we interpret his statements and riddles…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2018

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Spielberg's Ambivalence

K risten Thompson devotes several pages of her Apocalyptic Dread , a study of apocalyptic in contemporary film, analyzing Spielberg's 2005 remake of War of the Worlds . She points to the “film’s extensive references to 9/11 and terrorism as the new marker of dread in the twenty-first century.” She…

May 26, 2016

The Sacrament of the Suffering Body

F elecia Wright McDuffie's To Our Bodies Turn We Then is a study of Donne's understanding of the body as “word and sacrament.” Drawing from Donne's poetry, sermons, and prose writing, she summarizes Donne's view of the human body as created, fallen, redeemed, and recreated. All along the way, McDuffie…

May 25, 2016

Dark Music

P utting “film noir ” and “musical” in the same sentence may seem absurd. If any film genre is sunlight and sentiment, seething with clappy optimism, it's the musical. And noir is something different. Sheri Biesen's Music in the Shadows shows that the two forms have cohabited for decades: “The…

May 25, 2016

Unchosen Temples

W ho teaches your U.S.A. children how to choose their temple? What to love enough not to think two times?” These questions are posed in the broken English of Remy Maranthe, one of the Wheelchair Assassins who populate David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest . After Canada is forced into the…

May 25, 2016

Creation and Recreation

C J Labuschagne points out in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible that “Exod 39:32–43 tells how the Tabernacle with all its equipment was presented to Moses, who inspected all the work and saw that the craftsmen had done their work according to the command of the Lord, and he…

May 24, 2016

God Speaking to God

C J Labuschagne ( Numerical Secrets of the Bible ) highlights the use of 11-fold literary patterns in the Pentateuch. The creation account, for instance, uses the formula “and God said” eleven times, concluding with the creation of Eve: “This coherence is found also in the eleventh divine utterance in…

May 24, 2016

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