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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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Triune Pastor

In his book on Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light , Christopher Beeley takes a chapter to describe the Trinitarian foundations of Gregory’s theology of pastoral care. Gregory’s Orations, he points out, are organized to lay the emphasis…

January 20, 2014

Fear of Death

Orthodox theologian John Romanides describes in The Ancestral Sin (162-3) how the fear of death leads to evil practices and habits: “Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus,…

January 19, 2014
History

Illiberal liberalism

TS Eliot presciently warned in his “Idea of a Christian Society” (in Christianity and Culture ) that liberalism has the capacity to turn into its opposite: “Liberalism still permeates ourminds and affects our attitude towards much of life. That Liberalism may be a tendency towards something very differentfrom itself, is…

January 19, 2014
History

Borrowed Capital

Chesterton ( The Thing ), pre-channeling Alasdair MacIntyre: “the modern world, with its modern movements, is living on its Catholic capital. It is using, and using up, the truths that remain to it out of the old treasury of Christendom; including, of course, many truths known to pagan antiquity but…

January 19, 2014

Ukraine, Dictatorship

Timothy Snyder reports on depressing developments in Ukraine : “President Viktor Yanukovych, in having the deputies of his Party of Regions endorse an extraordinary packet of legislation, has arrogated decisive political power to himself. After hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians spent weeks in the cold demonstrating for basic human rights…

January 19, 2014

Static Natural Law

A debate on natural law is brewing in my little world, and here’s a little contribution. Natural law advocates insist that there are things that We Can’t Not Know , as J.Budziszewski puts it. Paul agrees: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine…

January 19, 2014

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