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Biblical Horizons

The Peril of Weekly Communion

A while back a friend told me that his church had finally introduced weekly communion. He told me that they were having an 8:00 a.m. service on Sundays for anyone who wanted to have communion. At present only about five people were coming to this service, but he was hopeful…

by James B. JordanDecember 5, 1993
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Deuteronomy

The Structure of Deuteronomy 12

According to James B. Jordan’s outline of Deuteronomy, the first commandment section runs from 6:1 to 11:32, and the second commandment section begins with 12:1. 1 That this division of the text is sound is confirmed by a comparison of 6:1 with 12:1. Deuteronomy 6:1 announces that "this is the…

by Peter LeithartNovember 20, 1993
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Ezra

The Holy City

Calling Jerusalem the "holy city" comes so naturally to Christians that it comes as something of a surprise to realize how infrequently the phrase is used in Scripture. Not only is Jerusalem rarely called holy, but in the Old Testament this classification is found only in texts that refer to…

by Peter LeithartNovember 17, 1993
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John

Born From Above

Nicodemus’s conversation with Jesus in John 3:1-15 is often regarded as an illustration of the tremendous stupidity of the Jews of our Lord’s day. Those who take the passage this way fail to recognize the profound nature of Nicodemus’s questions and of Jesus’ answers. In verse 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus…

by James B. JordanNovember 5, 1993
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Deuteronomy

1994? — Not! (Part 3)

In his book 1994? , Harold Camping asserts that the life spans of the primeval patriarchs of Genesis 5 & 11 were actually epochs, one after another. This together with other mistakes in interpretation yields for him a creation date of 11013 B.C. From here, Camping tries to work out…

by James B. JordanNovember 5, 1993
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1 Corinthians

The Woman’s Head Covering in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

I have received a number of letters asking for my comments on this difficult passage. Here is my best shot! 2. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything, and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. This statement opens a new section…

by James B. JordanOctober 5, 1993

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Commodification and Community

Commodification is a three step dance, according to John McKnight and Peter Block ( Abundant Community ). It begins by identifying a human condition; it redescribes the condition as a problem that can be fixed; and then it sells the fix (39). The fix gets reduced to elements and then…

September 27, 2018

Adam and Israel

I don't agree with Seth Postell's fundamental thesis in Adam as Israel . He states the thesis as follows: "when understood as the introduction to the Torah and the Tanakh as a whole, Genesis 1-3 intentionally foreshadows Israel's failure to keep the Sinai Covenant as well as their exile from…

September 26, 2018

Josiah's Sabbath

The Chronicler carefully lays out the chronology of Josiah's reign (2 Chronicles 34-35). 1)Becomes king at age of 8 (34:1). 2) In the eighth year of his reign, at age 16, Josiah begins to seek God (34:3). 3) In the twelfth year of his reign, at age 20, Josiah begins…

September 25, 2018

Great Awokening

Bo and Ben Winegard analyze today's "Great Awokening" as a religious movement. They deploy the categories of sacredness and purity, priestly privilege, sin, atonement, and absolution to explain "Wokeness" as a religious movement and a status system. They admit to that "many of their moral concerns are entirely legitimate," but…

September 24, 2018

A Thousand From Each Tribe

Here's a connection I missed in my commentary on Revelation. One of hundreds. In Numbers 31, the Lord instructs Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites. The vengeance is for the attack by the Balak of Moab, who joined the Midianites in attacking Israel. Initially, they tried to hire the…

September 19, 2018

The Social, Wholes, and Structuralism

In a chapter in The Social in Question , Bruno Latour summarizes the work of 19 th -century sociology Gabriel Tarde. Latour is particularly interested in the anti-structuralist import of Tarde’s social metaphysics and anthropology. Tarde writes, for instance, “In general, there is more logic in a sentence than in…

September 19, 2018

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