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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

A Daughter of Abraham

Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 16, 2019
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Autonomy

Rehabilitating Autonomy

It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…

by Mark HorneApril 9, 2019
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John

Jesus: Preacher of Paradox

Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 2, 2019
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Esther

The Book of Esther in Covenant History

It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…

by James B. JordanMarch 28, 2019
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How to Worship

A Positive View of Music

It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…

by John AhernMarch 26, 2019
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Biblical Theology

The Reopened Wounds of Jacob

In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…

by Alastair RobertsMarch 19, 2019

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Theology

Gift and Causation

Further along his his treatment of de Lubac, Milbank discusses the change in the meaning of causality and divine causality in the medieval period. Drawing on the work of Jacob Schmutz, he gives this account: Prior to 1250, influentia was understood in its etymological sense as a “flowing-in” from God…

April 5, 2006
Theology

Henri de Lubac: A Brief Introduction

INTRODUCTION The French Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) was one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, a central figure in the ressourcement movement and the nouvelle theologie movement that inspired the change of atmosphere in the Catholic church leading up to Vatican II. In his…

April 5, 2006

Sermon Outline, Palm Sunday

Much of the following was inspired by a lecture by Dr. David Powlison of the counseling center at Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia. INTRODUCTION As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to take our cross to suffer with Him. He suffered because He provoked murderous hatred from his enemies. Our afflictions…

April 5, 2006
Art

Noah and the Sinners

At the end of his intriguing discussion of Gericault’s painting Scene of Shipwreck, Julian Barnes gives a brief summary of the fortunes of Noah in Western art, which he says change significantly after the Sistine Chapel: “In the Sistine Chapel the Ark (now looking more like a floating bandstand than…

April 2, 2006
Philosophy

Existing

JL Austin once suggested that many people think of existing as something over and above the various activities of a thing, something things do all the time: “like breathing, only quieter - ticking over, as it were, in a metaphysical sort of way.”

March 31, 2006

Aquinas and Cooperation

Exploring George Hunsinger’s criticisms of Thomas’ views on grace, Kerr argues that Thomas does not, as Hunsinger suggests, make human nature “conceptually prior to and independent of divine grace.” Rather “it is by grace that the soul of the sinner is open to God. Paradoxically, fallen human beings are open…

March 31, 2006

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