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Writing

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

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Acts

No One Dared Join Them

And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. Acts 5:12-13 When Grandma needed healing, her children knew the…

by Tim NicholsAugust 31, 2021
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How to Worship

Why Sacraments?

Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…

by Peter LeithartAugust 26, 2021
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Biblical Chronology

The Embarrassment of Biblical Chronology

And Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah . . . And Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber . . . and Eber lived thirty-four years and became the father of Peleg . . . and Peleg lived thirty years, and became the…

by James B. JordanAugust 24, 2021
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Hermeneutics

The Fall of Satan

Of course, the title should be something like, “The Fall of the Angel Who Came to be Satan,” but that and other more accurate titles are too cumbersome. The question is: who is Satan, and when and how did he become “Satan” (Adversary, Accuser) and the “devil” (slanderer)? By my…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 19, 2021
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Baptism

Baptismal Rain and the Feast of Booths

In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…

by James B. JordanAugust 17, 2021
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Proverbs

An Antidote for Yuppie Postmillennialism

This piece was originally published in 1989. 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…

by James B. JordanAugust 12, 2021

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Victorian Typology

Typology was a traditional method of reading Scripture, one that persisted into the Victorian age. Most obviously, this took the traditional form of finding shadowy figures of Christ in Old Testament characters and institutions and promises. J.C. Ryle, a leading Evangelical Anglican, claimed that one “golden chain” runs through the…

July 17, 2018

Knowing as Known

Philosophers sometimes restrict “knowledge” to verifiable facts, logical inferences, statements, theories. In fact, knowing goes on all the time, in many modes and manners. As Esther Meek puts it, our lives are a tapestry of acts of knowing. Our knowing is nestled within God’s knowing. Our acts of knowing occur…

July 16, 2018

You Are Witnesses

You are my witnesses, the Lord tells Israel. You will be my witnesses, Jesus tells the apostles before His ascension. All Christians are witnesses, "martyrs" in the original sense of the word. All Christians are also called to be "martyrs" in the more developed sense: We are all called to…

July 12, 2018

Century of the Bible

Brian Stanley ( Christianity in the Twentieth Century ) is aware that the "Bible is the fountainhead of all Christian traditions," perennially central to the church's life. But he suggests that "the twentieth century may have a better claim than any other to be labeled the century of the Bible"…

July 11, 2018
Epistemology

The Picture of Epistemology

Modern epistemology operates, Charles Taylor argues ( A Secular Age ); he covers some of the same ground in Retrieving Realism ), within a "closed world system" (CWS). CWS describes the various "ways of restricting our grasp of things which are not recognized as such" (551). When one operates within…

July 10, 2018

Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The horsemen who are summoned by the living creatures in Revelation 6 are known as “horsemen of the Apocalypse." This is what they are, technically, since they are horsemen and they appear in a book called “the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ.” But usually that phrase implies something more: these horsemen,…

July 9, 2018

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