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Writing

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

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Art

Toward a Biblical Definition of Obscenity

My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what…

by Peter LeithartMay 30, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Abomination of Desolation, Part 1

An Overview Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail. (The original form of…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 12

29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Chronology of Ezra & Nehemiah, Part 4

We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Horizons

The Weight of Being

Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the…

by Peter LeithartMay 6, 1991
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Proverbs

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 11

24. Four things are small on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise; 25. The ants are not a strong folk, But they prepare their food in the summer; 26. The coneys are not a mighty folk, Yet they make their houses in the rocks; 27. The locusts have no…

by James B. JordanApril 22, 1991

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Literature

Dickens and Modernity: Background

This is the opening portion of a lecture on Dickens’s Hard Times, but I want to examine Dickens not only as an artist but in relation to his fictional depiction of what we think of as “modernity.” Modernity is in part a set of ideas and aspirations, a set of…

January 16, 2007
Literature

Dickens and the French Revolution: Background

A Tale of Two Cities was published in 1859, the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the original revolution, usually dated to the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. This stood to Dickens’s time approximately as WW II does for us. My parents, and your grandparents, remember WW…

January 15, 2007

Sermon Notes, Third Sunday After Epiphany

INTRODUCTION God is unseen, John says (v. 12). How then can the world know Him? John places the burden of showing God on us: The world knows the God who is love through the love we have for one another. THE TEXT “No one has seen God at any time.…

January 15, 2007

Eucharistic meditation, Second Sunday after Epiphany

1 John 4:9: By this the love of God is manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to…

January 14, 2007

Exhortation, Second Sunday After Epiphany

Love is blind, we like to say. John says the opposite. John teaches that we need to test and discern and judge the spirits and prophets. Discernment means keeping your eyes open. Discernment means not believing everything that you hear, not jumping on every bandwagon that passes through town, not…

January 14, 2007
History

Ex cathedra

When Frederick the Elector of Saxony protected Luther from church and imperial authorities, it was not as a personal friend but to protect the rights of the university faculty to exercise censorship in religious matters. The Reformation thus planted the seeds for the exaltation of the university Professor in German…

January 13, 2007

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