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

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Federal Vision

Whose Legalism? Which Works-Righteousness?

The 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference and the Assurance of Grace Recently, there has been some controversy over the presentations of four speakers at the Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference. Accusations have been made including a denial of justification by faith alone and something close enough to “baptismal regeneration” that it…

by Mark HorneMay 28, 2003
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Galatians

The Problem with Moses (It's Not What You Think!)

Today, many in the Reformed world view a meritorious covenant of works as essential to a proper understanding of the gospel. These theologians believe that God set up a program in the Garden by which Adam would merit eternal life and blessing by his obedience. These same theologians usually regard…

by Rich LuskMay 24, 2003
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Theologia

The Gospel = Jesus Is Lord

After I graduated from college in 1989, I spent a summer in the Atlanta area in Georgia learning that I was not cut out for construction work. Then I met George Grant, one of my favorite authors. He was working for a church in South Florida in charge of their…

by Mark HorneMay 24, 2003
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Justification

Righteousness from God

One meaning of “righteousness” in the Bible is moral uprightness. Perhaps a more basic meaning would be faithfulness. For example, Psalm 96.13 praises God, saying: He will judge the world in righteousness, And the peoples in faithfulness. In Hebrew poetry two lines often say the same thing using different words.…

by Mark HorneMay 24, 2003
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Eschatology

Participationist Eschatology

I once saw “eschatology” defined as the study of edible French snails. But it really means the doctrine of the last things in Christian theology. In American Evangelical culture it is usually reduced to science fiction stories. But for the Apostle Paul it was actually the key to the Christian…

by Mark HorneMay 23, 2003
Atonement

N. T. Wright on the Atonement

To understand the view of Nicholas Thomas Wright regarding Christ’s work of redemption, one must begin with the centrality of Adam to the plight of the human race. Anyone who has heard Wright’s lectures on Philippians will not be able to forget his haunting appeal to Genesis 5.3 as a…

by Mark HorneMay 23, 2003

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Simplifying People

L ouis, the dying, grasping, hateful narrator of Francois Mauriac's Vipers' Tangle believes the “tangle of vipers was outside myself,” forming a “hideous circle” consisting of his wife and children. He has occasional moments of lucidity when he recognizes that the satanic nest is really within, as in this self-reflection…

July 29, 2016

Culture of Canaan

L eviticus 18 consists largely of rules on sex-permitted degrees of consanguinity, prohibited sex acts like homosexual sodomy and bestiality and adultery. The chapter begins, though, with a more general warning against conforming to Egyptian and Canaanite ways of life. Verse 3 puts this in a series of parallel clauses…

July 28, 2016

Sad Tales of the Death of Kings

W hen Shakespeare's Richard II disembarks in Wales, he learns that Henry Bolingbroke has usurped his throne and that three of his most trusted allies have turned Judas—“three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!” (3.2.132). Villains, vipers, dogs, and snakes have become his courtiers. The most shocking blow, though,…

July 28, 2016
Mission

Double Mission

K evin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert ( What Is the Mission of the Church? ) are concerned about the inflation of missionality in Evangelicalism. They are in favor of churches that engage in mercy ministry and advocate for justice but they insist that these dimensions of the church's work are…

July 27, 2016

A Brief Theology of Genealogy

G enealogies may function “tribally,” that is, to secure the present of the tribe in the past, to hold the present hostage to the past, and to ensure that there is no variation. Change is the enemy; genealogies record change, but record change in a way that displays a continuous…

July 26, 2016

Hands

T oward the end of his book on hands , British psychoanalyst Darian Leader summarizes one of the main themes of the work: “Keeping our hands busy has always been a central human activity” (107). That busyness can take the form of a touch that draws us close, the grasping…

July 26, 2016

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