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

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Biblical Studies

Exile or Ark?

In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…

by James B. JordanApril 10, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Mark Came to be Written

The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…

by James B. JordanMarch 24, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Matthew Came to be Written

The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…

by James B. JordanMarch 20, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

Church-Culture | Cause-Effect

There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…

by Mark HorneMarch 14, 2008
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Genesis

Is Genesis 15 an Attack on Forensic Justification?

Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…

by Mark HorneMarch 6, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

On Renewing Theology

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…

by Jeff MeyersMarch 1, 2008

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Architecture of Fancy

T he title essay of John Summerson's Heavenly Mansions sets Gothic architecture in a story of the architecture of fancy. He begins with doll houses, and moves to aedicules, originally small buildings holding the image of a god that eventually became purely decorative alcoves. In Gothic, the ornament is turned…

February 17, 2017

Slow Grow

I n his Rise and Fall of American Growth , Robert J. Gordon argues that the growth rates for the American economy have leveled because the rate of innovation has leveled. And the rate of innovation has leveled, in part, because some innovations happen only once: The flood of inventions…

February 17, 2017

Anthropology of Deficiency

A ccording to Ingolf Dalferth ( Creatures of Possibility ), Christianity “contradicts a view that understands human beings in their fundamental dependence, finitude, and passivity, not merely biologically, but anthropologically, as deficient beings , interpreting their absolute dependence as absolute neediness, their finitude as a metaphysical evil, and their experience…

February 17, 2017

Passive Creativity

C hristian theology has long taught that we are “finite copies of the infinite Creator: created creators” (Dalferth, Creatures of Possibility , 198). Christian anthropology is eschatologically oriented: “Who we are is not determined by our origin; it will become evident in our future” (198). This comes to expression in…

February 17, 2017

Slackers

I t’s a challenge to get a clear idea of what slackers are really all about. Tom Lutz isolates the dilemma in his Doing Nothing (18-19): The famous or almost-famous idlers, loafers, loungers, and slackers throughout history had to produce work about not working in order for us to know…

February 17, 2017

Living Sacrifices

J oseph Ratzinger reflects on Romans 12:1-2 in his Theology of the Liturgy (349-51), which is evident in the Roman Canon's prayer that “our sacrifice may be rationabilis .” He writes: It is not enough—indeed, it is quite wrong—to translate this as saying that it should become rational. We are…

February 17, 2017

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