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Writing

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

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Deuteronomy

Allusive Torah

In the first part of this essay, I argued that the story of the covenant is what unifies and grounds the laws in the book of Deuteronomy. In the third section of this essay, as part of my argument that Deuteronomy 14:1-21 forms a distinct pericope, I claimed that these…

by Ralph Allan SmithJuly 22, 2013
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Economics

So You Wanna Be Rich?

Paul ends 1 Timothy with convicting warnings about the temptations of wealth and the danger of pursuing wealth. Godliness involves contentment and gratitude for the basics – food and clothing (1 Timothy 6:8). To reinforce the point, Paul reminds Timothy that we came into the world without anything, which is…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 2013
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Catholicism

The Festival and the Mass

Like Marx himself, the Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre was a firm believer in the dictum that “the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism,” though he dissented from Marx’s prior claim that the criticism of religion is essentially complete. He includes a vicious, sarcastic, Marxist diatribe against the…

by Peter LeithartJuly 15, 2013
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Theopolis News

Biblical Horizons Summer Conference

This week, Trinity House fellows James Jordan, Jeff Meyers, Rich Bledsoe, and Peter Leithart will be lecturing in Niceville, Florida, at the Biblical Horizons Summer Conference. Fore more information, check the Biblical Horizons web site.

by Peter LeithartJuly 15, 2013
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Isaiah

Combustible God

Fire seems to be a motif in Isaiah 6. The chapter opens “in the year that king Uzziah died,” and we know that Uzziah died a leper because he tried to burn incense in the temple against the law of God. And in this context, in the year king Uzziah…

by Daniel StanleyJuly 10, 2013
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Biblical Studies

Rehabilitating the Quadriga

According to the medieval theory of the "Quadriga" or the "fourfold sense" of Scripture, each passage of Scripture has four dimensions of meaning. Protestants generally cast a suspicious eye on this "method" of reading. That's a mistake. It's a handy guide to the questions we should always ask as we…

by Peter LeithartJuly 8, 2013

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Ward on Covenant of Works

Early in Ward’s book, he surveys mid sixteenth-century treatments of the effects of Adam’s sin, mainly to determine whether writers of that period conceived of God’s relationship with Adam as a covenantal one. His evidence suggests several important conclusions: 1) The early Protestant confessions do not describe Adam’s relationship to…

June 23, 2004
Theology

Kline on Covenant of Works

In his very useful study, God & Adam: Reformed Theology and the Creation Covenant , Rowland S. Ward has this to say about Meredith Kline’s views on the un-gracious character of the covenant of works: “Contrary to his position in 1968, Kline does not wish now to admit any concept…

June 22, 2004
Theology

More Bad Taste

I should clarify my final, hurried comments on Brown’s discussion of sin and bad taste. I suggested at the end of the last post that Brown’s initial mapping of the problem contributes to an unsatisfying conclusion regarding moral and aesthetic judgment. Brown argues that taste is community-specific, and thus subject…

June 22, 2004
Theology

Sin and Bad Taste

One of the challenges of a Christian aesthetics is sorting through the connections and distinctions between holiness and good taste on the one hand, and sin and bad taste on the other. In his 1989 book, Religious Aesthetics , Frank Burch Brown offers some thoughtful reflections on this question. Here…

June 22, 2004
Theology

Don Richardson and Contextualization

Don Richardson’s Peace Child is a classic of modern mission writing. In that book, Richardson tells of his experience among the Sawi people of New Guinea, and how he used their traditional custom of exchanging a “peace child” between warring tribes to explain the gospel to them. In his 1981…

June 22, 2004

True and False Arks

When the men of Babel organize to build a tower reaching to heaven, they decide to use “tar for mortar” (Gen 11:3; NASB). The Hebrew phrase repeats two different forms of the same root word (CHMR): The word for “tar” is CHEMAR and the word for “mortar” is CHOMER. They…

June 22, 2004

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