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Writing

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

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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Journey to Rome

Traveling by sea to Rome, Paul encounters a storm, plunges into the sea and then arrives at Malta.  He is an unreluctant Jonah, cross the sea westward to call a Gentile empire to repentance. But why the unusually detailed travelogue in Acts 27?  Sidon, Cyprus, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Myra in Lycia,…

October 16, 2009

Preparing a body

Let us suppose that the Son dwells in flesh, dies to flesh, rises in Spirit, all to prepare a new humanity to receive the radiance of light within.  What might be wrong with that? One objection might be: Why does God need time to prepare a body?  As a student,…

October 15, 2009

Adam and Extrinicism

What difference does the incarnation make?  For Athanasius, it means (among other things, of course) that grace is worked from within humanity rather than being offered extrinsically from without, as grace was given to Adam. Redemption history is a movement from extrinsic to intrinsic grace, as the Father raises Adam’s…

October 15, 2009

Same and Other

Levinas opposes the reduction of the Other to the Same. So, with more reason, does Athanasius: The Father and Son are not one in the sense that “one thing is twice named, so that the Same ( ton auton ) becomes at one time Father, at another time His own…

October 15, 2009

Company of Nations

Chee-Chiew Lee has an interesting article on the phrase “company of nations” in Genesis 35:11.  She links the promise that Jacob will become a company of nations to the promise that Abraham would be a father of many nations in Genesis 17:4-5.  But 35:11 adds an important gloss to the…

October 15, 2009
Philosophy

Hegel on desire

Peter Singer ( Hegel: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) ) gives a neat summary of the paradoxes of desire in Hegel: “Desire appeared as the expression of the fact that self-consciousness needs an external object, and yet finds itself limited by anything that is outside itself.  But to…

October 14, 2009

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