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Writing

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

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Baptism

For the Children’s Sake | An Alternative Angle on the Paedocommunion Debate

The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…

by Rich LuskNovember 16, 2002
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Covenant

Covenant & Election FAQs

How do covenant and election relate to one another? There are many issues of semantics that enter into this discussion and many issues of real substance, so we need to be careful. If we oversimplify, we can say that election relates to God’s eternal plan to save a people for…

by Rich LuskAugust 20, 2002
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Theologia

Vine, Branches, & Fruit

Shortly after the Last Supper and before his final arrest, Jesus said these words to his remaining eleven faithful disciples: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2002
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Deuteronomy

The Gospel of Deuteronomy

Was Caleb saved by faith or works? Caleb is just one of many thousands of Hebrews who entered the Promised Land after spending years in the wilderness being led by Moses. God had delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and gave them a law at Mount Sinai based on…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2002
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Romans

Romans and the Role of Israel in the Atonement

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5.7) So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Ephesians

Paul's use of the Decalogue in Ephesians 6:1-3

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6.1-3). Honor your father and your mother, that your…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002

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Personal angel

When Peter comes to the door of the house where the disciples are praying for him, they think it’s Peter’s “angel” (Acts 12:15). The thing at the door is recognizably Peter, but they don’t think it’s Peter in the flesh. It’s still the person, but not the embodied person, so…

January 12, 2014

John the Seer/John the Baptist

The name John in Revelation 1:1 links the seer up with John the Baptist, the messenger who came from God to announce the coming of Christ. Some (JM Ford, Revelation (The Anchor Bible, Vol. 38) ) have suggested that this points to John the Baptist and his circle as the…

January 12, 2014
Theology

Justice inverted

Cyril O’Regan ( Theology and the Spaces of Apocalyptic , 60)summarizes Bulgakov’s cautions about turning justice into the master theme of Christian witness. Bulgakov is “sensitive to the horrors that have been committed in the name of justice throughout history and proximally in the Russian Revolution. The thirst for justice…

January 11, 2014

The Other Protestantism

Liberal Protestants and orthodox Protestant both tell the story of modern Protestantism as the opposition of liberalism and orthodoxy. Already in the 19th century, FC Baur doubted this scheme, and suggested there was a third form of Protestantism - a gnostic Protestantism. Cyril O’Regan’s Gnostic Return in Modernity is the…

January 11, 2014

Cultured God

Jenson makes the remarkable claim that God is Himself culture (in a contribution to God, Truth, and Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas , 160-1): “What it is to be God is given in the Father’s eternal begetting of the Son and enlivening through the Spirit, in the Spirit’s eternal liberating of…

January 10, 2014

Rectification

Joshua Davis gives a deft summary of J. Louis Martyn’s understanding of Pauline theology in the introduction to Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology: With and Beyond J. Louis Martyn , which Davis co-edited with Douglas Harinck. Building on but going beyond Kasemann, Martyn attempts to reconstruct Paul’s doctrine of…

January 10, 2014

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