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Writing

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

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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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Deep Exegesis

My forthcoming book on hermeneutics is available for pre-order at Amazon, Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture .

May 7, 2009
History

Colonialism and Missions

Vinoth Ramachandra ( Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping Our World ) acknowledges that there are “many shameful stories to be told of Western missionary complicity in colonial practices of domination,” but adds that “the more typical stories of missionaries and local Christian leaders in India, Africa…

May 7, 2009
History

Non-Constantinian Shift?

If, as Yoder claims, the “Constantinian” compromise of the church with the world begins in the second and third centuries; if it begins when Christianity is still an illicit religion, persecuted periodically but savagely; if it begins when the church is still populated by martyrs - is it still a…

May 7, 2009
Theology

Consensus theology

Yoder is a sometimes bizarre combination of profound insight and infuriating oversimplification verging on ignorance. He claims, for instance, that Augustine offers “a consensus kind of moral thought,” a moral thought based on “what everybody thinks.” He goes on: Augustine “does not radically ask, do you get that from the…

May 6, 2009

This World Farther On

Yoder again: “What we are now doing is what leads to where we are going. Since the ‘this-worldly’ and the ‘otherworldly’ [are] not perceived in radical dichotomy, to be ‘marching through Emmanuel’s ground’ today is to be on the way to Zion. Terms like ‘hereafter’ are in that kind of…

May 6, 2009

Ladder recast

Yoder writes of the difference between theories of emanation and John’s Christology: “instead of tailoring Jesus to fit the slots prepared for him, John breaks the cosmology’s rules. At the bottom of the ladder, the Logos is said to have become flesh, to have lived among us as in a…

May 6, 2009

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