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

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Biblical Studies

A Daughter of Abraham

Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 16, 2019
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Autonomy

Rehabilitating Autonomy

It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…

by Mark HorneApril 9, 2019
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John

Jesus: Preacher of Paradox

Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 2, 2019
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Esther

The Book of Esther in Covenant History

It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…

by James B. JordanMarch 28, 2019
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How to Worship

A Positive View of Music

It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…

by John AhernMarch 26, 2019
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Biblical Theology

The Reopened Wounds of Jacob

In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…

by Alastair RobertsMarch 19, 2019

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Physicians of Memory

Historians do not make the periods of history, argues Rosenstock-Huessy ( Out of Revolution , 689ff). The seams of history are made by people who experience upheaval, and commemorate those experiences in monuments, memory, and calendar. Yet the historian has his place, one marked out first by Thucydides: “He corrects…

January 23, 2014
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Europe’s Dark Age

Rosenstock-Huessy offers an intriguing analysis of the triumph of the “French” myth of the Renaissance ( Out of Revolution , 699-705). For starters, he gives a bleak summary of Europe between 1450 and 1517, “one of the ugliest and darkest hours of the past”: “The growth of the cities ceased…

January 23, 2014
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Soul of Ukraine

Tim Judah continues his reporting on Ukraine : “What we saw in the Orange Revolution, and what we are seeing now, is a fight for the very soul of Ukraine, a country of some 45.5 million people that stretches between the eastern marches of the European Union to the western…

January 23, 2014
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Temple Sermon

There are two temple sermons in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah himself preaches at the gate of the temple (Jeremiah 7), warning that the house of Yahweh has become a “den of thieves” (v. 11) and that the Lord will do to His house “as He did to Shiloh” (v.…

January 22, 2014
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Fourfold Deliverance

Psalm 107 repeats the same phrase four times: “then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble, He saved them from their distress” (vv. 6, 13, 19, 28). There are four forms of distress: Some wander in a wilderness, hungry and thirsty, unable to find their way to a city…

January 22, 2014
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Unequal Inequality

Inequality is a big theme these days. Alister Heath writes to remind us that not all inequality is equal . Some inequality arises inevitably because of disparities of talent, opportunity, risk, etc. Heath focuses on the inequality that arises when people cozy up to power in order to use that…

January 22, 2014

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