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Writing

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

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Biblical Horizons

Gordon Wenham on Ritual

In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states: We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society: a nod, a handshake,…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 27, 1995
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Biblical Horizons

A Postscript to the Meyers Thesis

Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 27, 1995
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Baptism

Sacramental Efficacy

Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato , virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and "presto!" the sacraments confer grace.…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 26, 1995
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Exodus

Mansions in the Sky, The Meaning of the Tabernacle

When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do…

by James B. JordanJanuary 7, 1995
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Revelation

The Angels of Revelation

Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus…

by James B. JordanJanuary 7, 1995
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Biblical Horizons

Triune Revelation and Through New Eyes Volume 2

Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the…

by James B. JordanJanuary 7, 1995

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God’s Righteousness

God did not need to make the world. But once He’s made it, He cannot be a righteous God unless He deals righteously with sin (by punishing it) and righteously with His people (by justifying them). This is why Paul says the cross demonstrates God’s righteousness so that He might…

February 1, 2004

God’s Righteousness

God did not need to make the world. But once He’s made it, He cannot be a righteous God unless He deals righteously with sin (by punishing it) and righteously with His people (by justifying them). This is why Paul says the cross demonstrates God’s righteousness so that He might…

February 1, 2004

Forgiveness and Glorification

Jim Jordan suggests that justification as forgiveness of sins always also includes glorification. The “robe” that covers us (imputed righteousness) is likewise a garment of glory and beauty, so that we are invested for office at the same time we are glorified. He wants also to relate this to the…

January 31, 2004

Ten Lepers

The story of the 10 lepers in Luke 17 is not just about Jesus demonstrating that He is powerful to save, cleanse and heal. He is powerful for all those things; He DOES have mercy on the unclean and the outcasts. But Luke tells the story of the healing almost…

January 31, 2004
History

Mutability and Change

Part of the Renaissance recovery of history was an emphasis on mutability and change. Few themes so dominate the poetry of Spenser or the sonnets of Shakespeare as the fear that Time will gobble up everything good. This was continuous with ancient (and medieval) conceptions of the world, since changeability…

January 31, 2004

Movies, Stories, and Redemption

“Movies,” writes Brian Godawa, a Christian screenwriter, “may be about story, but those stories are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily MOSTLY about redemption.” Godawa uses the theologically loaded term “redemption” intentionally, but he recognizes that many contemporary movies present a distinctly secular gospel of redemption. For some movies, redemption comes through…

January 30, 2004

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