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

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Isaiah

The Desert of the Sea

Introduction Isaiah 21 can only be understood in the light of its placement in the architecture of the second “volume” of the prophecy (chapters 13–27). The contents are arranged in twin sevenfold “columns” that represent the great bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple: Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. The priestly…

by Mike BullFebruary 20, 2025
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Isaiah

Jesus Enthroned on the Zodiac

A Biblical Reflection on the Purpose of the Constellations The starry heavens hold a place of wonder in the hearts of men. Since man’s creation we have looked up into the heavens and have beheld its glory. This is particularly true of the night sky. The stars, in their shinning…

by Matthew DarbyFebruary 19, 2025
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Matthew

An Overall Chiasm around Six Discourses in the Gospel According to Matthew  

The case for there being five discourses within the Gospel according to Matthew is a hard one to challenge: surely the closing formula “when Jesus finished these sayings” as found in 8:1, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1 settles it once and for all. And by the five instances of the…

by Benoit EngelFebruary 13, 2025
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Matthew

Exegesis of the Great Commission

The Long Commission The Great Commission of Matthew 28 has long been a cornerstone of American Evangelicalism. It has formed and fashioned the American church’s missional impulse. Yet when viewed from the wide lens of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the Great Commission is revealed as one of the pillars…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 11, 2025
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Lord's Supper

Genuine Paedocommunion

I am delighted to see that more and more churches in the Reformed tradition are now recognizing that all baptized children are members of the body of Christ and therefore ought to be communing with the rest of the body at the Lord’s Table. This has been decades in the…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 6, 2025
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Twitter and Emotional Sabotage

Good leaders have always been rare. In today’s world, they seem extinct. Joe Rigney’s recent book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage digs into the spiritual reasons for the leadership epidemic and recommends cures. Rigney starts with a summary of a book by Edwin Friedman called A Failure of Nerve . Friedman’s…

by Christian LeithartFebruary 4, 2025

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Secular states and Religious Freedom

Saba Mahmood and Peter G. Danchin examine religious liberty cases from Egypt (publicly an Islamic state whose laws are based in sharia), the European Union, and the U.S. Despite differences, they highlight the remarkable similar dilemmas that arise in these very different legal systems. The common antinomies emerge because of…

April 6, 2018

Dead End of the Left

In 1969, Carlo Lancellotti writes in Commonweal , the journal " Esprit published an exchange between two of the best-known Catholic intellectuals of the time. One was Jean-Marie Domenach, who in 1957 had succeeded Emmanuel Mounier as editor of Esprit and de facto flag-bearer of 'progressive' French Catholicism. The other…

April 6, 2018

Hyperliberalism and Tyranny

In a scathing TLS piece , John Gray describes the "un-liberty" of "hyperliberalism," today most clearly evident on university campuses. Under the older liberal regime, "Academic disciplines cherished their orthodoxies, and dissenters could face difficulties in being heard. But visiting lecturers were rarely disinvited because their views were deemed unspeakable,…

April 6, 2018

Prophet of Pluralism

JN Figgis isn't a household name these days, but he was an important Christian political thinker of the early twentieth century. Raised in a Calvinist home, he abandoned his childhood faith for some years, before returning to Christianity while at Cambridge. But his real "conversion," according to David Nicholls (…

April 6, 2018

Universal Man

Johannes Zachhuber argues, against Richard Cross, that Gregory of Nyssa holds to a "collection theory" of universals. That is, universals are collections of individuals, but genuine wholes, not merely a summation of individuals. For Gregory, this is not nominalism; universals are real. And the universal is indivisibly immanent in each…

April 6, 2018
Europe

Christianism in Europe

In a 2016 article , Rogers Brubaker describes a trend in European politics. Having defined the enemy of European civilization as "Islam," rightists in Europe have come to define themselves in religio-civilizational terms as well. They are posing as defenders of "Christianity." Problem is, many of their beliefs are distinctly…

April 6, 2018

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