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Writing

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

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Hermeneutics

The Structure of the Joseph Narrative

(Genesis 37:2 – 50:26) A. Generations of Jacob, 37:2a B. Joseph hated by brothers, 37:2b C. Jacob’s discriminatory blessing, 37:3-4 D. Rule over family: vision, 37:5-11 E. Joseph seeks brothers, 37:12-17 F. Joseph "killed," 37:18-36 G. Judah’s sin, ch. 38 H. Imprisonment, though undeserved, ch. 39-40 I. Famine and Pharaoh,…

by James B. JordanJanuary 4, 1999
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Exodus

Crisis Time: Patriarchal Prologue, Part 5

Moses and Jesus The gift of the Father is a son, but we must be ready to give our sons back to Him when it is time. The gift of the Brother is an estate, but we must be ready to give our estates back to Him when it is…

by James B. JordanJanuary 4, 1999
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Ecclesiology

Of The Church

An Exposition of Chapter XXV of the Westminster Confession of Faith I. The Catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the…

by Mark HorneDecember 5, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Critics

From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Critics , by David Gress (New York: Free Press, 1998). This book came into my hands after I had finished my series of essays on Western Civilization. It is so good that I was tempted to summarize it in…

by James B. JordanDecember 4, 1998
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American Politics

Buchanan and Free Trade

In a recent issue of the Chalcedon Report (March, 1999), R. J. Rushdoony praises Patrick Buchanan’s book The Great Betrayal (Boston: Little Brown, 1998), a defense of protectionism. Rushdoony claims that the conflict between free trade and tariffs is a religious conflict, and he is correct. Unfortunately and surprisingly, he…

by James B. JordanDecember 4, 1998
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Esther

Crisis Time: Patriarchal Prologue, Part 4

Joseph and Esther The third patriarch was Joseph, and the third phase of pre-gospel history is the Restoration. We have not spent time looking particularly at the Joseph narrative heretofore, because it is different in cast from the Abraham and Jacob ones. There is no explicit promise, fulfillment, and crisis…

by James B. JordanDecember 4, 1998

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Instruments Make the Man

Samuel tells Saul he will meet prophets coming down from a high place (from worship) playing instruments - harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre (1 Samuel 10:5). Each of these has a history; and the history of each is woven with Israel’s maturation as a people. Israel’s musical development tracks her…

September 16, 2014

Advocacy v. Art

9/11 pushed novelist Ian McEwan from unsettled agnosticism into atheism. Since that day, McEwan says, he has felt that “religion was distinctly unhelpful in making compassionate, reasonable judgments about people’s lives. On the whole, the secular mind seems far superior in making reasonable judgments.” That is an odd conclusion to…

September 16, 2014

Nations Win Out

An analysis from Stratfor Global Intelligence claims that the effort to re-establish medieval caliphates will run into several obstacles. The first has to do with internal divisions among radical Islamists themselves. Muslim nation-states are admittedly artificial, often weak, but still Islamists tend to group together along national lines: “Most Islamists,…

September 16, 2014
Trinity

Social Trinity

Three things stand out in Charles Lowry’s 1946 essay on The Trinity and Christian Devotion . The first is that the book exists at all, since it comes from a time when Trinitarian theology was supposed to be pretty much moribund. (Rahner’s book was published in 1970.) The second is…

September 15, 2014

Hot Semiotics

Wanting to figure out what makes someone attractive on Tinder, Anne Helen Petersen created her own experimental knock-off and tested it on about 800 people. She reports her findings at buzzfeed.com . Petersen found that race was an important factor in attraction, as was religion. Even when religion was not…

September 15, 2014

Silence in Heaven

When the Lamb opens the seven seal, there is silence in heaven for a half hour. There are several questions to ask about this silence. The first is, What is being silenced? Everything? It could be taken as total silence that lasts only from the time that the seventh seal…

September 15, 2014

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