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Apostle Paul

Paul in Prison: Ephesus or Rome?

In the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to hardships in his ministry in Asia, specifically Ephesus (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 15:32; 2 Corinthians 1:8; 4:8-12; 6:4-5; 11:23-25). However, the multiple imprisonments Paul mentions are not fully reflected in Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry — Luke only records a…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 15, 2022
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Epistemology

Vertical Living

After all these months pondering integration, I have come to the point of believing that the dynamic of integration just is the real at its heart. Everything that is real or comes to be real is a dynamo of integrative coherence. I also believe it is true that the real…

by Esther Lightcap MeekFebruary 1, 2022
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Books

Tom Holland and the Liberating Power of Christianity

Have you heard of Tom Holland? Not the young Tom Holland of Spiderman fame. No doubt you’ve heard of him. I’m referring to the middle age Oxford-trained historian who recently wrote Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind . (Both Hollands are British, so you’ll be forgiven for confusing them.)…

by Gerald HiestandJanuary 25, 2022
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Biblical Horizons

"Do This!"

This article was originally published in 1990. (The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what…

by James B. JordanJanuary 19, 2022
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American Culture

The Dominion Trap

This article was originally published in 1990. In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on…

by James B. JordanJanuary 13, 2022
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Biblical Studies

Will Few Be Saved?

On several occasions the gospels record Jesus teaching that only a few will be saved (Matthew 7:14, Matthew 22:14, and Luke 13:23). Careful readers of Scripture should begin to wrestle with how these passages found in the gospels fit together with other passages that teach that many will be saved…

by Manny LucasJanuary 11, 2022

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TheologyTrinity

Is All That's In God God?

Divine simplicity is often summarized in the axiom, "All that's in God is God." If this is taken at face value, though, it conflicts with Trinitarian orthodoxy. 1) By this axiom, the Persons are identical with the essence of God. 2) But the Persons have (or are) identifying particularities or…

February 5, 2020
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Exodus

Israel's New Creation

Every commentator nowadays notes that the description of the tabernacle in Exodus 25-31 is laid out in seven speeches of Yahweh that mimic the days of creation. It’s less obvious that the first subsection of Exodus 25-31 also follows the creation week, as does Moses’ erection of the tabernacle in…

February 3, 2020
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Romans

Strong and Weak in One Body

Romans 14-15 overlaps in several ways with 1 Corinthians 8—10. Both deal with problems about food. In both, Paul talks about the “weak” and the “strong,” and encourages the strong to defer to the weak. The overlap isn’t total. Romans 14-15 isn’t dealing specifically with meat sacrificed to idols, but…

January 29, 2020
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AnthropologyBiblical Studies

Epidermal Theology

Skin is philosophically intriguing. It’s our largest and most sensitive organ. It’s a forming principle, working with the skeleton to give shape to the body. The beauty of a beautiful person is, in large measure, the radiance of skin. Skin is the boundary between our inside and outside, and like…

January 27, 2020

This Little Babe

This little babe, so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake. Though he himself for cold do shake, For in this weak unarmèd wise The gates of hell he will surprise. With tears he fights and wins the field; His naked…

December 25, 2019
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Biblical Studies

The Old Testament Is Dying

The premise of Brent Strawn's argument in The Old Testament Is Dying is that the Old Testament is a language. That is, it "is, or at least can be, a way of constructing reality, a way of understanding the world, a way of perceiving all that is, including ourselves" (8).…

December 18, 2019

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