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Writing

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

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Ezra

Ezra: The Aaronic Rest-Giver

If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…

by Rhys LavertyJune 8, 2021
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1 John

1 John in Community

Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…

by Tim NicholsJune 1, 2021
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Hermeneutics

Spending Time with Noah: Reflections on Prepositions in the Flood Narrative

In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…

by Josh JensenMay 25, 2021
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Philosophy

Steven Weinberg Destroyed My Faith

Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 18, 2021
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Colossians

Reconciliation in Colossians 1:20

Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 11, 2021
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Movies

Terror of Knowing Myself

Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 4, 2021

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More Than Cool Reason

Antonio Damasio began to doubt the purity of reason when he encountered a patient with a brain disease that destroyed the portion of his brain that controlled emotional responses: “I had before my eyes the coolest, least emotional, intelligent human being one might imagine, and yet his practical reason was…

May 9, 2016

The Persistence of Modernism

In a contribution to a forthcoming collection of essays on Time , David James explores the usefulness of periodization categories like “modern” and “postmodern.” To be sure, some believe that modernism and modernity are passe: “' Many emerging artists,' reflects Terry Smith, ‘sense that Modernism—no matter how often and subtly…

May 6, 2016

Singers and Priests

The genealogy of Levi in 1 Chronicles 6 begins and ends with the genealogy of Aaron (6:1-15; 6:49-53). In between are two lists of the clans of Levi, the first a simple genealogy arranged according to the subclans of Kohath, Gershom, and Merari (6:16-30) and the second a genealogy of…

May 6, 2016

No Deal

David Goldman (Spengler) writes that “Republican voters bought Trump’s message that the wicked Chinese and the feckless Mexicans have stolen jobs and wealth that rightfully belonged to Americans, and that he, Donald Trump, with his world-class negotiating skills, would go out and get them back.” The problem is that “There’s…

May 6, 2016

What Is A Family?

In her Sexual Authenticity , Melinda Selmys says that the distinction between “traditional” and “alternative” families is often misunderstood: “At the heart of it is distinction between family as something we choose to meet our own needs and desires (for comfort, security, affection, etc.), and family as something that we…

May 5, 2016

Sacramental Art

Nearly everything about modern art “can be empirically explained by examining style, iconography and patronage,” writes Richard Nelson ( The Spirit of Secular Art ). What cannot be explained is the prestige of art, and this eludes because it is reliant on intuitions that artists dismiss as archaic and outmoded.…

May 5, 2016

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