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Writing

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

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Ephesians

“Be Holy for I am Holy”

Below is an excerpt from Mark Horne’s manuscript from his forthcoming commentary on Ephesians, specifically on Paul’s reference to Christians as “saints” (Ephesians 1:1). “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul greets…

by Mark HorneMarch 25, 2025
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Exodus

The Perishable in the Ark of the Covenant

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt (2 Chronicles 5:10). When Solomon finally brought the ark of the covenant to the finished temple in…

by Jonathan WhiteMarch 18, 2025
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Exodus

The Stages of a Man’s Life and the Second Table of the Law

In As You Like It , Shakespeare famously describes the seven ages of a man’s life. The division of man’s life into stages is not an invention by Shakespeare, nor merely a common medieval artifice, but an expression of the real journey taken in life. Shakespeare seems to divide up…

by Ryan HandermannMarch 13, 2025
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Christology

The Essence of God’s Image

Is there a chief characteristic which best illumines the image of God in Man? What is it exactly that makes Man as a lens through which to see God? Moses thoughtfully and deliberately escorts the reader to the characteristic showcased above all else: humility. Though much ink has been spilled…

by Ben LoveladyMarch 11, 2025
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Liturgy

Two Ways of Being Liturgical: A Baptist Response to the High Church Exodus

Note: This essay is adapted from a talk delivered at the Howell E. Jackson Committee conference on “Foundations of Baptist Education,” held at Union University, Oct. 4-5, 2024. It’s no secret that evangelicals are converting to High Church traditions, a term I will use to refer to Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism,…

by Ryan SinniMarch 4, 2025
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Icons

Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church

In recent years, there has been a flurry of conversions from Protestant Christianity towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, at least in part due to their supposed early church heritage relative to Protestantism. In the words of Rod Dreher, a former Methodist who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, “Many evangelicals seek…

by John CarpenterFebruary 25, 2025

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Economics

Historicizing Homo Economicus

Among the German writers that Liebersohn ( The Return of the Gift ) discusses, Karl Bucher stands out as a crucial figure. Like other German economists, Bucher objected to what he saw as abstract British economic theories, which attempted to universalize the historically specific British experience. Beyond other theorists, and…

June 29, 2012
American Religion

Instant America

In his fascinating intellectual history of nineteenth and twentieth-century theories about gifts ( The Return of the Gift ), Harry Liebersohn discusses the theories of nineteen-century German economists who attempted to historicize economics. Friedrich List’s advocacy of rapid German modernization was partly shaped by his experience of the United States.…

June 29, 2012
Literature

Literature Guide

Louis Markos packs an awful lot into the 130 pages of his new Literature: A Student’s Guide (Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition) . The book is an introduction to poetry, with a chapter on metrics and rhyme and another on poetic tropes and imagery. Halfway through, it turns into a…

June 27, 2012
History

State and Modernity

In his Guilt and Gratitude: A Study of the Origins of Contemporary Conscience (Contributions in Philosophy) (pp. 37-8) , Joseph Amato follows Karl Polanyi in noting how the introduction of markets, contract, cash, corporations “radically transformed traditional man’s fundamental conception of giving and taking.” Adjusting to this new order left…

June 27, 2012
History

Keeping things together

In the second book of De Specialibus Legibus Philo writes about the feast of trumpets: “Immediately after comes the festival of the sacred moon; in which it is the custom to play the trumpet in the temple at the same moment that the sacrifices are offered. From which practice this…

June 26, 2012

Self-gift

John Paul II ( Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body , p. 168-9 ) notes that parents and children have a natural fleshly unity with one another. In marriage, by contrast, the one-flesh relationship is chosen: This “reciprocal choice . . . establishes the conjugal…

June 26, 2012

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