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Church Calendar

Five Misconceptions of Reformation Day

For many people the date October 31 is significant not only for being the Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve, Halloween) but as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. These theses were a list of…

by Timothy LeCroyOctober 31, 2017
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Church Calendar

Concerning Halloween

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…

by James B. JordanOctober 26, 2017
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Revelation

Preaching, An Art of Division

The following is an excerpt from Peter Leithart's forthcoming two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark). Y ou must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings,” a voice tells John (Rev. 10:11). Then someone gives him a “reed like a rod” and instructs him to measure (11:1).…

by Peter LeithartOctober 24, 2017
josiah-death

Back To Egypt

Josiah is an ideal Davidic king in many ways. He not only “did right,” but he “walked in the ways of his father David” and “did not turn aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). At the age of 16, he began to seek Yahweh, and…

by Peter LeithartOctober 19, 2017
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Augustine

Augustine and the Music of Time

One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Paul Ricoeur, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…

by Peter LeithartOctober 17, 2017
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How to Worship

The Psalter Should be Woven into the Fabric of Worship

This has always been the position of the Christian Church, and from an historical perspective the present situation in evangelicalism is appalling. The early liturgies of the Church, which are still used in Episcopal and Lutheran worship, are laced with psalm phrases. The early hymns, such as the Te Deum…

by James B. JordanOctober 12, 2017

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Immigration

Is Immigration “Decimating” Us?

David Goldman (Spengler) acknowledges that “illegal immigration is a bad thing, and the social costs of a mass influx of poor and uneducated migrants from Mexico and Central America are significant.” Yet he doesn't think it is “one of America’s bigger problems.” That is partly because migration has been declining:…

March 4, 2016

Parallels in Luke-Acts

Rebecca Denova( Things Accomplished Among Us ) provides a good summary of the complex pattern of parallelism that structures Luke and Acts. She points to the parallels between the gospel and the apostolic history: “The baptism of Jesus with water in Luke 3 is paralleled by the community's baptism with…

March 4, 2016

Practical Trinity

A section of Kant's Conflict of Faculties lays out “Philosophical Principles of Scriptural Exegesis for Settling the Conflict” of faculties. The first rule is that a scriptural text whose theoretical claims transcend reason and morality “may be interpreted in the interests of practical reason.” If it contradicts practical reason, it…

March 4, 2016

Moses in Chronicles

Moses isn't mentioned in Chronicles as much as he is in Exodus-Joshua. Naturally. But that doesn't mean that Moses is unimportant to the Chronicler. As James Sparks notes ( The Chronicler's Genealogies ), Moses is more prominent in Chronicles than in almost every other book outside the Pentateuch. The Chronicler…

March 3, 2016

Tristan and Courtly Love

According to WTH Jackson's Anatomy of Love , Gottfried of Strausburg's version of the Tristan story marks a critical change from courtly romance. Instead of the shadowy, unknown lady of those poems, she is a real character. Isolde is no mere “psychological catalyst” for Tristan , as Laudine is for…

March 3, 2016
Atonement

Gospel as Atonement Theory

In a characteristically pithy essay, Robert Jenson has decried the “two paired errors” of traditional atonement theory. On the one hand, the cross is separated “from its future, in the resurrection” and, on the other, from “its past in the canonical history of Israel.” For the apostles, crucifixion is “anything…

March 3, 2016

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