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

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Biblical Studies

Funerals and Flutes

Matthew 8-9 records three clusters of miracles, interspersed with snatches of Jesus’ teaching about various aspects of discipleship. Just as the Sermon on the Mount displays the authority of Jesus’ Word in teaching, these chapters display the authority of Jesus’ Word over sickness, uncleanness, the creation, demons, and death. In…

by Peter LeithartApril 17, 1992
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Baptism

Daddy, Why Was I Excommunicated?

Since the early 1980s, several of the conservative Reformed Churches have debated and wrestled with the issue of paedocommunion (infant communion). The PCA and the OPC assigned study committees to examine the question, both of which produced useful reports both in support of and against the position. Though the debate…

by Peter LeithartApril 13, 1992
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Biblical Chronology

Chronologies and Kings, Part 9: Jehu, Hazael, and Assyria

(This issue of Biblical Chronology concludes a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in previous posts. Click on the category link of "Biblical Chronology" above to see previous issues. Did Shalmaneser Know Jehu? Allis writes: "The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser contains, in addition to brief accounts of the…

by James B. JordanMarch 23, 1992
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American Culture

Arts and Play, Part 4

Movies Movies as an art form have a powerful impact because they take place in a dark room, on a large screen, with no distractions, and because they entail many of the arts: music, acting, choreography, design and color, etc. A movie can be an overwhelming experience for a young…

by James B. JordanMarch 23, 1992
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Leviticus

The Ecology of the Tribute Offering

The Hebrew word translated as "grain offering" or "cereal offering" is minchah . Like the translation of `olah as "burnt offering," the translation of minchah as "grain offering" is somewhat deceiving, since minchah does not refer to grain or cereal. In liturgical contexts outside of Leviticus, in fact, the word…

by Peter LeithartMarch 13, 1992
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Ascension

Skinned and Cut

"He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces" (Leviticus 1:6). The normal word ( `olah ) that is translated as "burnt offering" and "whole burnt offering" has nothing to do with either burning or wholeness. It is the noun form of a verb meaning "to…

by Peter LeithartMarch 13, 1992

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Baptismal meditation, Easter Sunday

Genesis 29:10b-11: Jacob went up, and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice and wept. Caesarius, bishop of Arles in Southern France in the fifth century, said that the patriarchs of…

April 16, 2006

Eucharistic meditation, Easter Sunday

1 Timothy 3:16: By common confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, beheld by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. As Pastor Wilson has emphasized this morning, pagan civilizations are…

April 16, 2006

Exhortation, Easter Sunday

What is the cross? For John, the cross is not the humiliation of the Son. The cross is His glorification. Jesus told Nicodemus that the Son of Man would be lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness. Jesus was referring to the event recorded in Numbers when Moses put…

April 16, 2006

Grace and gratitude in Hebrews

In a couple of books, David deSilva interprets the letter to the Hebrews in terms of Greco-Roman clientage and patronage systems. I have my suspicions about social-science interpretations of the NT, but deSilva’s work is illuminating. In a brief study of honor and shame in Hebrews, he writes that “The…

April 16, 2006
History

Moral luck

Far from destroying ancient notions of moral luck (the notion that we must have good fortune to be ethically good), or following Stoicism in pulling back the moral into the inner soul, Christianity, in Milbank’s view, “embraces moral luck to such an extreme degree that it transforms all received ideas…

April 15, 2006
History

Postmodernism and Christianity

In an essay in Being Reconciled , Milbank describes postmodernity as “dissolving of fixed limits” in several respects: “(1) the blurring of the nature/culture divide; (2) the merging of public and private; (3) the mode of the information economy; and (4) economic and political globalization.” He argues that “postmodernity, like…

April 15, 2006

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