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

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Biblical Studies

Is Abraham’s Life a Type?

The preceding essay has caused me to consider the possibility that the life of Abraham as recounted in Genesis contains a typological prophecy of the history of Israel; that is, that the events in Abraham’s life broadly anticipate events in Israel’s history. This kind of pattern is seen in the…

by James B. JordanMay 5, 2001
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Hermeneutics

Thirty-Eight Years by the Sheep Pool

by: Jeff Meyers and James Jordan In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of a man who had been ill for 38 years and who was lying by a pool located by the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. This sheep waited, as did many other infirm people, for an…

by Jeff MeyersDecember 5, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

How Are Women Saved?

What had been reduced to ruin by this sex, would by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. —Tertullian What is Paul saying about women and salvation…

by Jeff MeyersOctober 5, 2000
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Jeremiah

The Return of Hamor

Back in Biblical Horizons 132 I discussed the horrible abuse of the converted men of Salem/Shechem in Genesis 34. These Hivites had joined the covenant by circumcision and then were slaughtered by Simeon and Levi. That, however, is not the end of their story. In Joshua 9 we find the…

by James B. JordanOctober 4, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

Abram’s 318 Men

Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…

by James B. JordanSeptember 4, 2000
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Hermeneutics

153 Large Fish

Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…

by James B. JordanSeptember 4, 2000

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Reformational Catholicism

Regionalism

D erek Rishmawy is on to me . In a charitable review of The End of Protestantism , he sees through my effort to make a proposal that is “pre-emptively impervious to critique.” He’s right that I admit “that any number of my worries are indeed possible, but insists that…

November 3, 2016

Paedocommunion, the Gospel, and the Church, IV

T he thesis here is: Inclusion in the sacraments is a necessary privilege of membership in the covenant people. There is no covenant membership except one that is sealed by participation in covenant signs and rites. I immediately concede any number of qualifications and exceptions to this claim. A baptized…

November 2, 2016

Paedocommunion, the Gospel, and the Church, III

P aedocommunion not only implies that the church is the new Israel, but that the church is the new humanity . To say the one is to say the other, for Israel was chosen from among the nations to be Yahweh’s instrument to reverse the sin at Babel, the sin…

November 1, 2016

Influencing the World

S ummarizing Russell Moore’s 2016 Erasmus Lecture, Rod Dreher writes : Moore is “saying that the best way to influence the culture for Christ is to stop trying to ‘influence the culture for Christ,’ but rather to be deeply and thoughtfully Christian, and to allow your countercultural life to be…

November 1, 2016

Paedocommunion, the Gospel, and the Church, II

A ll paedobaptists agree that the church is the new Israel, formed as the body of the Risen Christ. But paedocommunion reinforces this point dramatically, for it insists that the admission requirements to the church’s meal are exactly the same as the admission requirements to Israel’s meals. Ancient Israel celebrated…

October 31, 2016

Smile!

M atthew Hutson reports in The Atlantic about technical developments that will make it impossible to know when we’re on camera: Many of the cameras that can be pointed at us today are easy to spot. But researchers are developing recording devices that can hide in plain sight, some by…

October 28, 2016

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