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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 2

In our first essay in this series ( part 1 ), we saw that Proverbs 30 opens with a puzzle, a cryptic sentence that challenges the reader to search out a matter in order to gain understanding. "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory…

by James B. JordanOctober 26, 1989
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Isaiah

Hezekiah’s Sign

The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…

by Peter LeithartOctober 13, 1989
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Proverbs

An Antidote for Yuppie Postmillennialism

1. The Blessed Hope "Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Titus 2:13 I was recently asked how I as a postmillennialist would preach on "The Blessed Hope." This is often a sticky question, because postmillennialists believe that…

by James B. JordanAugust 26, 1989
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American Culture

Elijah’s War with Baal

1. Jeroboam and Ahab After Solomon died, the people came to his son, King Rehoboam, and asked for tax relief. Rehoboam refused to give it, and indeed told the people that he was going to tax them even more severely than his father had. At that point, with the blessing…

by James B. JordanJuly 26, 1989
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Biblical Horizons

The Love Feast

One aspect of truth is unity. It was Truth Incarnate who prayed for the unity of His people in John 17, which certainly makes unity a priority for them as well. In one sense, we know by faith that the Church is always invisibly unified in Christ, but there is…

by James B. JordanJune 16, 1989
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Biblical Studies

The Son of Joseph, Revisited

Mr. Paul Miller of Vancouver writes that he is not persuaded by my remarks on Luke 4 on " The Son of Joseph ." He calls attention to Mark 6:1-6, where Jesus came "to His own part of the country," taught in the synagogue, and astonished many. The people said,…

by James B. JordanMay 16, 1989
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Liturgy

Sabbath Threshing

Solomon built the temple on the threshing floor that David bought from Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24; 2 Chronicles 3). What might that mean? Grain is threshed when an animal walks over it, sometimes dragging a threshing sledge, to separate the grain from the chaff. Threshed grain is winnowed,…

October 23, 2015
Art

Life and Culture Series

These are remarks delivered to introduce conductor John Mason Hodges as the first Birmingham Life and Culture speaker. This is the first of what we hope will be an annual lecture on the arts and culture. Each year, we’ll bring a painter, musician, poet, sculptor, novelist, critic, architect, or scholar…

October 22, 2015

Two Tables

Jesus’ action in the temple was a symbolic enactment of the coming destruction of the temple. The Jewish leaders had turned what should have been a house of prayer for the Gentiles into a den of brigands. Jesus overturned the tables and chairs to dramatize what lay on the horizon…

October 22, 2015

Double Time in Othello

AC Bradley ( Shakespearean Tragedy ) points out that Othello has an unusual structure for a Shakespeare tragedy. The main conflict doesn't arise until the third act, and then the pressure and movement is relentless from that point to the end. In the other tragedies, the crisis emerges earlier, Act…

October 22, 2015

The Quadrigal Form of Christian Thought

The quadriga - the fourfold sense, consisting of literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical - isn't only a “method” for interpreting Scripture but a framework for interpreting everything . Two assumptions guide my reflections here. First, medieval biblical scholars insisted that biblical allegory and typology was not merely a method of…

October 22, 2015
Rosenstock-Huessy

Listening

Theories of language, Rosenstock-Huessy comments, focus almost exclusive attention on the speaker or writer, and almost none on the listener: “Our philology is built around the process of talking, speaking, writing.” Listening is emphasized in “military training for obedience, understanding to psychology, listening and learning to acoustics and education.” But…

October 21, 2015

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