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Writing

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

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Soothing Pain is not Enough

In Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood (2024), Keith Hayward says that we live in a “therapy culture.” This is “a way of thinking” about upbringing and education “when the values and language of counseling and psychotherapy break out from the clinical setting and take hold within the cultural imagination…

by Bogumil JarmulakJune 5, 2025
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Biblical Theology

Sarah, Abraham’s Helper

In Genesis 20:13, Abraham reveals that when he and his wife left their father’s house, he asked Sarah to call him her brother, not her husband. Abraham looked ahead to the land before them, a land full of violence, and he didn’t trust men there. He believed they would see…

by Donald LinnemeyerJune 3, 2025
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Biblical Studies

Why You Should Read the Biblical Languages

Introduction I am sitting in a rural village in the northern part of a West African country. I’m in the courtyard of an imam. Two other Christians are with me. It’s hot and dusty, but we have come to read Scripture and talk together. As a local Christian takes the…

by Calvin HaysMay 29, 2025
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On Merriment

This is the wey to al good aventure; Be glad, thou reder, and thy sorwe of-caste -Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Foulys, 131–132 In January I had the honor and delight of speaking at the Church of the Redeemer’s 2025 Christendom Lectures. What follows are drawn from the notes for…

by Mark BriansMay 27, 2025
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Galatians

The Letter: A Fictional Account of the Writing of Galatians

I had often heard that wisdom is visible in the countenance and I thought that I had seen examples of it in the past. But the man who stood before me, loosely holding the reins of the mare and peering around him with sharp interest, gave no outward hint of…

by Christian LeithartMay 22, 2025
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Revelation

Satan’s Final Throne Room Accusation

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light — 1 Corinthians 11:14 In Revelation 5:2, the first of three “Mighty Angels” appears before the throne of God and preaches in a great voice, asking, “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the…

by Ryan SpencerMay 20, 2025

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Structure in Revelation 21:1-5

Revelation 21:1 concludes the last section of chapter 20, but also inaugurates a new section of the text. It's a Janus passage, looking both back and forward. 21:1-8 concludes the large section begun in 17:1-2, the fourth “in Spirit” vision of the book. The section is divided into smaller bits…

July 27, 2015

No Temple

A city descends from heaven (Revelation 21:9ff). It's laid out as a cube, like the Most Holy Place. It's measured, like other holy environments in the Bible. It is adorned with jewels - precious stones like the stones of the temple or on the high priest's breastpiece. It's a golden…

July 27, 2015

Bloody Monday and Other Atrocities

Will Herberg ( Protestant Catholic Jew ) summarizes the American response to the growth of the Irish Catholic population of the US. Tension simmered throughout the middle antebellum decades of the nineteenth century, as nearly 2 million Irish, mostly Catholic, immigrated: “The Irish, precisely because in language, manners, and culture,…

July 27, 2015

What Rational Choice Theory Misses

At the end of his story of Texas Christianity ( Rough Country ), Robert Wuthnow assesses the strengths and weaknesses of two major theoretical perspectives on modern religion - secularization theory and rational choice theory. Secularization theory misses a lot: “It underplays the continuing importance of agriculture and the rural…

July 27, 2015

Satan Bound and Loosed

The sequence of events in Revelation 20 has some puzzles. Jesus has defeated the beast and the false prophet and thrown them into the lake of fire (19:1-21). The devil is well in hand, chained in the abyss that is shut and locked. He can't deceive the nations anymore, which…

July 24, 2015

Headless Kings

After the dragon is bound in the abyss, John next sees thrones (Revelation 20:4). His description of the thrones and those who sit on them is arranged chiastically: A. Thrones - they sat on them B. Judgment was given to them C. Souls of the beheaded C'. Those who did…

July 24, 2015

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