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Writing

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

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Baptism

For the Children’s Sake | An Alternative Angle on the Paedocommunion Debate

The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…

by Rich LuskNovember 16, 2002
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Covenant

Covenant & Election FAQs

How do covenant and election relate to one another? There are many issues of semantics that enter into this discussion and many issues of real substance, so we need to be careful. If we oversimplify, we can say that election relates to God’s eternal plan to save a people for…

by Rich LuskAugust 20, 2002
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Theologia

Vine, Branches, & Fruit

Shortly after the Last Supper and before his final arrest, Jesus said these words to his remaining eleven faithful disciples: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2002
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Deuteronomy

The Gospel of Deuteronomy

Was Caleb saved by faith or works? Caleb is just one of many thousands of Hebrews who entered the Promised Land after spending years in the wilderness being led by Moses. God had delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and gave them a law at Mount Sinai based on…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2002
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Romans

Romans and the Role of Israel in the Atonement

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5.7) So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Ephesians

Paul's use of the Decalogue in Ephesians 6:1-3

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6.1-3). Honor your father and your mother, that your…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002

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Atonement and Ascension

In Hebrews, atonement isn't achieved on the cross. Instead, the cross initiates a trajectory that ends with Jesus' ascent as priest into heaven. So argues David Moffitt in Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection .. He argues that the writer to the Hebrews contrasts angels and the Son to emphasize…

April 24, 2018

Triune Creation, Triune History

God created a mapped world. It was divided into zones, which were the fundamental zones of human life. God planted a garden in the east of the land of Eden. The garden wasn’t Adam and Eve’s home, but the place of their meeting with Yahweh the Creator. In the garden…

April 23, 2018

Re-Enacting Eden

Joel Humann ends his dissertation on Numbers 19 by drawing attention to the cosmological dimensions of the ritual of the red cow. He finds conceptual and verbal links back to Genesis 1-3, allusions that explain the details of the rite and its overall thrust. The sprinkling of the corpse-defiled person…

April 20, 2018

A Hamlet Sampler

Literary uses . Many writers allude directly and indirectly to Hamlet the play and Hamlet the prince. Melville’s Pierre tears up his copy of Hamlet while vowing to act on the new revelations concerning his dead father. Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister aspires to produce Hamlet, Eliot alludes to Hamlet in Prufrock…

April 19, 2018

Death and Life in the Wilderness

Joel Humann's Durham dissertation on Numbers 19 (the red cow and the waters of purification) is wonderfully illuminating. After a judicious close reading of the chapter, he turns to the question of the placement of the passage within Numbers. He observes that in Numbers the wilderness becomes a place of…

April 19, 2018

Romantic Hamlet

After 1800, Hamlet became an emblem of human existence in all sorts of guises, employed as a symbolic turning point in Western cultural history, whatever the character of that turning point might be. Is the main conflict of modern Europe a religious choice between Catholicism and Protestantism? Hamlet, the student…

April 18, 2018

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