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Writing

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

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Soothing Pain is not Enough

In Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood (2024), Keith Hayward says that we live in a “therapy culture.” This is “a way of thinking” about upbringing and education “when the values and language of counseling and psychotherapy break out from the clinical setting and take hold within the cultural imagination…

by Bogumil JarmulakJune 5, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Sarah, Abraham’s Helper

In Genesis 20:13, Abraham reveals that when he and his wife left their father’s house, he asked Sarah to call him her brother, not her husband. Abraham looked ahead to the land before them, a land full of violence, and he didn’t trust men there. He believed they would see…

by Donald LinnemeyerJune 3, 2025
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Biblical Studies

Why You Should Read the Biblical Languages

Introduction I am sitting in a rural village in the northern part of a West African country. I’m in the courtyard of an imam. Two other Christians are with me. It’s hot and dusty, but we have come to read Scripture and talk together. As a local Christian takes the…

by Calvin HaysMay 29, 2025
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On Merriment

This is the wey to al good aventure; Be glad, thou reder, and thy sorwe of-caste -Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Foulys, 131–132 In January I had the honor and delight of speaking at the Church of the Redeemer’s 2025 Christendom Lectures. What follows are drawn from the notes for…

by Mark BriansMay 27, 2025
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Galatians

The Letter: A Fictional Account of the Writing of Galatians

I had often heard that wisdom is visible in the countenance and I thought that I had seen examples of it in the past. But the man who stood before me, loosely holding the reins of the mare and peering around him with sharp interest, gave no outward hint of…

by Christian LeithartMay 22, 2025
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Revelation

Satan’s Final Throne Room Accusation

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light — 1 Corinthians 11:14 In Revelation 5:2, the first of three “Mighty Angels” appears before the throne of God and preaches in a great voice, asking, “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the…

by Ryan SpencerMay 20, 2025

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Literature

The Bible and Other Tragedies

In a book written in the late 1370s, the surgeon John Arderne prescribed “the Bible and other tragedies” as remedies. These books were good sources, as Henry Ansgar Kelly explains in summarizing Arderne’s point, “for humorous stories of a good and decent kind that doctors can use to provoke their…

January 28, 2004
Theology

Barth on Faith

Barth defines faith as the “determination of human action by the being of the Church and therefore by Jesus Christ, by the gracious address of God to man.” While there may be weaknesses with this, there are several commendable things about the definition: 1) It does not polarize faith and…

January 27, 2004
Theology

Theology as Science Again

If, as Barth says, theology NEED not be part of the genus “science,” why has it been so designated? It appears that the impetus is an effort to achieve precisely the things that Barth says it does NOT need from science. Barth says, “As regards method, [theology] has nothing to…

January 27, 2004
Theology

Theology as Science?

Barth quotes from J. Gerhard, who rejected the designation of theology as a science. One of his grounds was: ” scientiae certitudo ab internis et inhaerentibus principiis, fidei vero ab externis videlicet ab autoritate revelantis pendet ,” which in substance means that science derives its certainty from principles that are…

January 27, 2004

The Oikoumene in the NT

Jim Jordan has pointed out that the Greek word “oikoumene” is used in the NT to refer to the Hellenistic and Helleno-Roman world, rather than to the entire inhabited earth. It could be translated as “empire.” Against this background, the usage in Heb 2:5 is very striking, since it talks…

January 27, 2004

Adam and the Dragon

A discussion of death in the prefall world led to this thought: What was Adam supposed to do when a big dragon came to his wife and began tempting her to sin? I think he was supposed to do exactly what the Last Adam did: Crush the serpent’s head. But…

January 26, 2004

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