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Writing

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

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Masculinity

Ringing the Brothel Door

Bruce Marshall once wrote that every young man who rings the bell at a brothel is unconsciously looking for God. While it is not necessarily true that the inward desire of every man is ultimately a thirst for righteousness, it is true that every sin is the disordering of a…

by Garrett SoucyOctober 31, 2023
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Ruth

Work and Gratitude in Ruth

In a previous essay , I argued that the story which begins with Lot and culminates in Ruth’s great-grandson David follows God’s five-fold pattern of creative work as laid out by Jim Jordan: taking something in hand (in this case, the Abrahamic family), restructuring it, distributing the product of labor,…

by Josh JensenOctober 27, 2023
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Books

Men, Marriage, and the Feminine Imperative: A Review of "Men and Marriage"

Gilder, George. Men and Marriage. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2023. 1 By 1973, the hightide of second-wave feminism had flooded the beaches of American culture. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique eroded the shores of traditional female roles by naming and stirring up further domestic discontentment. Kate Millet wrote her dissertation-turned-book,…

by Bill SmithOctober 17, 2023
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Galatians

Get Behind Me, Eliphaz!

The Book of Job is a very tortuous book. The arguments of Job and his friends are shot through with truth and error hopelessly mixed together. Every line of contentious poetry stands locked in deadly battle with every other line. As maddening as this can be for a reader who…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 10, 2023
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Apostle Paul

Before His Conversion, Paul Knew Jesus

More than once in the last 50 years it has occurred to me that Paul might have known Jesus before He appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, but I had never taken up the notion in earnest until recently when I ran into a book by Stanley Porter titled…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 4, 2023
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Acts

Did Peter Found the Church in Rome?

The question in the title is genuine, not polemic. I could be perfectly happy to follow an ancient — and what is regarded as a well-attested — tradition. But I do not feel compelled to follow it simply because it is tradition. I would like to have arguments that Peter…

by Ralph Allan SmithSeptember 26, 2023

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Pharisees and the “Outside”

Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees’ concern with the “outside” is remarkable. He condemns them for cleaning the outside of the plate and cut without concern for the robbery and wickedness within. That looks like a simple opposition of inner v. outer purity, however much Jesus combines the two in v…

October 25, 2003

Pharisees and the “Outside”

Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees’ concern with the “outside” is remarkable. He condemns them for cleaning the outside of the plate and cut without concern for the robbery and wickedness within. That looks like a simple opposition of inner v. outer purity, however much Jesus combines the two in v…

October 25, 2003
Science

Prophets

One way to make the point above about Michael Denton and Philip Johnson is to say that they are “prophets” in the sense that Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Jim Jordan use the term: They create a new future with their words.

October 25, 2003

Testing Jesus (Luke 11)

In Luke 11, the charge that Jesus is in league with the devil comes immediately after Jesus’ teaching on prayer, and there are verbal connections between the two sections of the chapter. One of the most important is the fact taht some of the people in the crowd “test” Jesus…

October 25, 2003
Science

Intelligent Design

Thomas Woodward has written a fascinating history of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement in Doubts About Darwin (Baker, 2003). His focus is on the history of the rhetoric of the debate (examining the ethos of each participant, the appeals to pathos, as well as the logos). Along the way, he…

October 25, 2003

Rare Chiasms?

In her introduction to the current Semeia volume, Eskenazi argues that the biblical writers rarely use ring or chiastic constructions. The ones that are “found” are, in her opinion, usually unconvincing. But she offers a more philosophical reason for the Bible’s avoidance of chiasm: In a Levinasian vein, she claims…

October 25, 2003

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