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Leviticus

The Theology of the Drink Offering

The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 2018
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Atonement

Limited Atonement & J. I. Packer

When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…

by Mark HorneJuly 12, 2018
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Hermeneutics

Bathsheba: The Real Story

One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…

by James B. JordanJuly 10, 2018
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Leviticus

The Oddness of the Feast of Booths

The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…

by James B. JordanJuly 5, 2018
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Matthew

A Universe Less Expanded

When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…

by Mike BullJuly 3, 2018
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Art

Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World: Kintsugi Integration

Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…

by Esther Lightcap MeekJune 28, 2018

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Language of deficit

After listing 22 descriptive terms for the self (including stressed, self-alienated, paranoid, bulimic), Kenneth Gergen notes that “they are all terms of mental deficit. They discredit the individual, drawing attention to problems, shortcomings, or incapacities. To put it more broadly, the vocabulary of human deficit has undergone enormous expansion within…

February 8, 2006

When to start philosophy

Montaigne wrote in his essay on the education of children, “The boy we would breed has a great deal less time to spare; he owes but the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life to education; the remainder is due to action. Let us, therefore, employ that short time…

February 8, 2006
History

Self-conscious modernity

Postmodernity is from one angle modernity coming to self-consciousness. Managerialism is as much at the heart of modernity as of postmodernity, but postmoderns know they are being managed. As a result, management is always shot through with irony. How can we take the wizard seriously after the curtain has been…

February 8, 2006
History

Postmodern society

David Lyon’s little book, Postmodernity, provides an excellent introduction to the sociological, technological, and political contexts in which postmodern thought has arisen. He is cautious about inflating claims about a “postmodern” condition or the coming of a “new society,” but attempts to isolate those features of contemporary life that have…

February 7, 2006
Literature

More on Hamlet

INTRODUCTION As many critics have pointed out, Act 2 of Hamlet focuses on the efforts of both the “mighty opposites” - Hamlet and Claudius - to spy out the intentions and plans of the other. Thus begins the process of inserting various mediators between the two, all of whom end…

February 7, 2006

Watts on Mark 1:1f

Rikki Watts offers some other dimensions to the quotation from Mark 1:1. He notes that Mark is quoting not only from Isaiah 40, but also from Exodus 23 and Malachi 3, and shows how these three texts overlay each other in Mark’s presentation. Exodus 23 is a warning to Israel…

February 7, 2006

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