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

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Biblical Horizons

Was the Last Supper a Passover?

Some readers of my essay, “ Strange and Glorious New Rites ,” have written to object that I have strained a gnat and swallowed a camel. I have strained out the gnat of a possible link to the memorial bread of the minchah (Lev. 2), while overlooking the camel that…

by James B. JordanMarch 22, 2011
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Biblical Horizons

Planetary Judgments

In his lectures on Comparative Religion, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy points to five fundamental gods that were over ancient man and still can dominate us today, and which must be respected. When we sin, we respect these gods more than we respect the Creator, disobeying the First Word: “You will have no…

by James B. JordanMarch 22, 2011
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Biblical Studies

Notes on the Book of Judges

A. Israel’s failure to hold land against the Canaanites. Progressive compromise, leading to judgment. 1:1–2:5. B. Israel’s idolatry, the cycle of judges, and war as God’s chastisement. 2:6–3:6. C. Northern Gentiles (Mesopotamia), and Othniel. 3:7-11. D. Lot: Moab, and Ehud. 3:12-13. E. Minor judge: Shamgar. 3:31. F. Canaanites opposed. Women…

by James B. JordanMarch 21, 2011
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Biblical Horizons

Principalities and Powers, (Part 2)

The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, “what fate awaits them?” They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 15, 2011
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Colossians

The Principalities and Powers, Part I

Paul contends that with the death of Christ on the Cross, there was an overcoming of the Principalities and the Powers (Col. 2:15). A great deal has been written on this subject over the last 60 years. What was for a long time either ignored, or regarded by liberal scholars…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 10, 2011
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Biblical Horizons

Eating and Drinking Together

One of the odd customs that has arisen in the 20th century is that many evangelical churches warp the rites of the Lord’s Supper by insisting that everyone wait so that they eat and drink together. Supposedly this is to emphasize the unity of the Church. This practice has no…

by James B. JordanMarch 3, 2011

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The Resistance

Martyrdom is the true resistance to the powers and principalities that rule in heavenly places. Witnesses broke the old creation order. Martyrs shattered the Roman world, so that God’s throne was set up in Europe and began shaking things. Early Christians were witnesses against the religious foundations of Rome. Rome…

October 18, 2018

The Unreason of Reason

There were, of course, varieties of Enlightenment, some more favorable to tradition than others, but what Jonathan Israel has called the “ Radical Enlightenment ” won, and they were the most hostile to traditional social and political forms. The Radical Enlightenment was committed to absolute freedom - from the past,…

October 17, 2018

Divine Liturgist

God speaks and light appears. He separates light and darkness, assigns names to each, and judges the whole to be good. Next day, He’s at it again, speaking, separating, assessing, judging. And so it goes throughout the days of creation: With an insistent, incantatory rhythm, God speaks, sees, names, judges.…

October 16, 2018

Impure Aesthetics

Jean-Marie Schaeffer ( Art of the Modern Age: Philosophy of Art from Kant to Heidegger (New French Thought Series) has a blast pointing out the contradictions in Kant’s aesthetics. Most of them arise from Kant’s insistence that the judgment of taste is founded on “the form of a finality” that…

October 15, 2018

Rawls, Envy, Sacrifice

John Rawls begins his Theory of Justice with what he describes as a "standard" social-scientific concept of rationality: "a rational person is thought to have a coherent set of preferences between the options open to him. He ranks these options according to how well they further his purposes; he follows…

October 11, 2018

Hate Crime, Brexit, and the Diversity System

Ben Cobley's The Tribe is a detailed, sobering examination of the left-liberal system of identity politics. Cobley, a leftwing journalist, describes a diversity "system." The system is founded on a division of the population between favored and unfavored groups, identified by race, sex and sexual orientation, age, religion, class, wealth,…

October 10, 2018

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