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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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Exhortation, Third Epiphany

According to what has become the “traditional” interpretation of the Constitution, every American woman has the right to kill her unborn baby. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973, over 45 million babies have been killed, and, though the abortion rate has slowed since 1990, more than…

January 22, 2006
Philosophy

Same and Other

Evaluating Levinas and his criticisms of Husserl, Derrida probes the coherence of Levinas’ notion of “infinitely other.” Contrary to Levinas, who argues that we are incorrectly seduced by everyday life to think of the other as an “alter ego,” Derrida says: “The other as alter ego signifies the other as…

January 21, 2006
Media

Art for Art

Adorno points out in an essay on television that “it would be romanticizing to assume that formlerly art was entirely pure, that the creative artist thought only in terms of the inner consistency of the artifact and not also of its effect upon the spectators. Theatrical art, in particular, cannot…

January 20, 2006

Sermons and such

Auden said, “In my opinion sermons should be a) fewer b) longer c) more theologically instructive and less exhortatory. I must confess that in my life I have very seldom heard a sermon from which I derived any real spiritual benefit. Most of them told me that I should love…

January 20, 2006

Totality and Dialogue

In “Violence and Metaphysics,” Derrida says that no “logos as absolute knowledge can comprehend the dialogue and the trajectory toward the other” because “the other is the other” and “all speech is for the other.” For Derrida, “A total logos still, in order to be logos, would have to let…

January 19, 2006
Philosophy

Eros and epistemology

For Aquinas, knowledge begins with knowledge of the effects of a thing. When faced with those effects, we naturally have a “desire to know about the cause what it is. This desire is one of wonder and causes inquiry.” The inquiry ceases when we arrive at knowledge of the essence…

January 19, 2006

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