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

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Ephesians

“Be Holy for I am Holy”

Below is an excerpt from Mark Horne’s manuscript from his forthcoming commentary on Ephesians, specifically on Paul’s reference to Christians as “saints” (Ephesians 1:1). “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul greets…

by Mark HorneMarch 25, 2025
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Exodus

The Perishable in the Ark of the Covenant

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt (2 Chronicles 5:10). When Solomon finally brought the ark of the covenant to the finished temple in…

by Jonathan WhiteMarch 18, 2025
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Exodus

The Stages of a Man’s Life and the Second Table of the Law

In As You Like It , Shakespeare famously describes the seven ages of a man’s life. The division of man’s life into stages is not an invention by Shakespeare, nor merely a common medieval artifice, but an expression of the real journey taken in life. Shakespeare seems to divide up…

by Ryan HandermannMarch 13, 2025
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Christology

The Essence of God’s Image

Is there a chief characteristic which best illumines the image of God in Man? What is it exactly that makes Man as a lens through which to see God? Moses thoughtfully and deliberately escorts the reader to the characteristic showcased above all else: humility. Though much ink has been spilled…

by Ben LoveladyMarch 11, 2025
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Liturgy

Two Ways of Being Liturgical: A Baptist Response to the High Church Exodus

Note: This essay is adapted from a talk delivered at the Howell E. Jackson Committee conference on “Foundations of Baptist Education,” held at Union University, Oct. 4-5, 2024. It’s no secret that evangelicals are converting to High Church traditions, a term I will use to refer to Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism,…

by Ryan SinniMarch 4, 2025
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Icons

Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church

In recent years, there has been a flurry of conversions from Protestant Christianity towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, at least in part due to their supposed early church heritage relative to Protestantism. In the words of Rod Dreher, a former Methodist who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, “Many evangelicals seek…

by John CarpenterFebruary 25, 2025

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Pure Father, Pure Son

In the course of demonstrating that Christ is not a creature, Athanasius pointed to the difference between human and divine fatherhood and sonship. Human sons have the potential to become fathers, and often do become fathers. But God the Father is unbegotten, and God the Son begets no other. That…

February 4, 2006
Philosophy

Kant and the Creator

In her brilliant book, Evil in Modern Thought , Susan Neiman summarizes Kant’s epistemology as torn between two themes: One, Kant’s insistence that our knowledge is not God’s knowledge, and that we should be content with finitude; two, that we still want to be God, and that this straining (evident…

February 2, 2006
Philosophy

Machiavelli to Descartes

Machiavelli offered a practical politics that emphasized image over reality: “it is not necessary for a prince to have all of the above-mentioned qualities, but it is very necessary for him to appear to have them. Furthermore, I will be so bold as to assert this: that practicing them, that…

February 1, 2006
Philosophy

Eucharistic Epistemology

“Denken ist danken.” I’ve repeated Heidegger’s axiom a number of times, but what makes this true? One angle: Our thoughts are distorted by fear, bitterness, hatred, anger, frustration, discontent, envy. But thankfulness is a solvent of all these; the thankful man cannot be frustrated with the portion he receives from…

February 1, 2006

Sacraments and modernity

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , Weber notes that the “Baptist denominations along with the predestinationists, especially the strict Calvinists, carried out the most radical devaluation of all sacraments as means to salvation, and thus accomplished the religious rationalization of the world in its most extreme…

February 1, 2006
Literature

More on Hamlet

ACTIONS A MAN MIGHT PLAY As many critics have noted, Hamlet is a play consumed with the question of action, in all the various permutations of that term. Hamlet opens the play questioning whether he should take the action of suicide, and after the ghost’s appearance Hamlet questions whether he…

January 31, 2006

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