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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

Esther and Ruth, Grain and Fruit

1 Introduction ESTHER and RUTH are similar stories. Each details the changing fortunes of a young woman. Each begins with the protagonist in a destitute situation. The fortunes of each reverses by story’s end. Intriguing parallels exist: Scenes : The stories transition through a similar set of scenes, see Table…

by Scott FairbanksApril 29, 2021
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Biblical Studies

A Hermeneutic of Riddles

Maybe this is not the best venue to reveal that I sometimes wonder about all that deep exegesis: the chiasms, the numerology, vowel modifications, the typological labyrinthes, the innumerable exodus patterns that are so often limned by Peter Leithart or James Jordan or Alastair Roberts. Maybe it’s because I am…

by John AhernApril 27, 2021
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Culture

Building New Watchtowers

In 1923, J. Gresham Machen wrote the book he is perhaps most remembered for, “Christianity and Liberalism”. Machen wrote it to help map out the cultural currents that were impacting the church with the hope that the church could be vigilant against the dangers theological liberalism posed to historic Christianity.…

by Steve GreggApril 22, 2021
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Matthew

THE ANNUNCIATION TO JOSEPH | (Matthew 1:18-25)

March 25, nine months before Christmas, is the date that is often associated with the Annunciation to Mary, Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that, by the coming of the Spirit upon her, she would conceive and bear the heir to David’s throne, whose kingdom would have no end. The story is…

by John BarachApril 20, 2021
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Book Review

Book Review: Race and Covenant: Recovering the Religious Roots for American Reconciliation

Race and Covenant: Recovering the Religious Roots for American Reconciliation , edited by Gerald R. McDermott (Grand Rapids, MI: Acton Institute), 278 pp. A group of notable thinkers gathered to discuss biblical resources for addressing racial conflict in America in February 2019 at Samford University in Birmingham. Race and Covenant…

by Ben PetersonApril 15, 2021
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Matthew

Full Preterism’s Fatal Fractal Fracture

“Covenant Creationism,” which might be the most consistent brand of full preterism, is merely dispensationalism turned inside-out. The main cause of disputes over the interpretation of the Scriptures is the practice of interpreting texts in isolation. This applies not only to interpreting a passage without reference to other passages, but…

by Mike BullApril 13, 2021

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Jonathan Edwards

Edwards on Union

Ross Hastings argues in Jonathan Edwards and the Life of God that union in the Spirit is the center of Edwards's theology: “union is a significant driving force in Edwards’s Trinitarian theology, if not its overarching trope, and that his theology essentially tells a ‘from eternity, to eternity' story of…

March 21, 2016

God Sending, God Sent

When Moses finds a bush burning on Mount Sinai, he turns aside to look. “Yahweh” sees him turn aside, so “God” ( elohim ) calls from the bush, Moses, Moses (Exodus 3:4). Earlier, we were told that the Angel of Yahweh “appearing in a blazing fire from the midst of…

March 18, 2016

The Music of Chemistry

Ben McFarland wants to convince his readers that the periodic table is a thing of beauty forever ( A World From Dust ). He admits that the table as normally presented is “not quite symmetric,” but points out that with a small adjustment “a mathematical pattern appears”: “By row, there…

March 18, 2016

Trinity in Theory and Practice

Making the Trinity practical seems like a very tall order. Few areas of Christian doctrine are more filled with technical mine fields, terms and concepts that must be used in very specific ways to avoid heresy. We have to talk about a God who is one God and yet somehow…

March 17, 2016

Islamic Syncretism

Andrew Walker's “Eat the Heart Out of the Infidel” reaches deep into the history of African Islam to explain the rise of the murderous Boko Haram movement in Nigeria. The Islam of Western Africa was not a pure Islam, but a syncretic Islam that retained and adapted the preexisting animism.…

March 17, 2016
Architecture

Whom is Architecture For?

In his recent biography of Frank Gehry, Building Art, Paul Goldberger recounts this incident: “a jet-lagged Gehry, already in his eighties, must make his way to a Spanish press conference from an interrupted nap: The first reporter asked him what his response was to charges that his buildings were more…

March 17, 2016

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