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Writing

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

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Acts

No One Dared Join Them

And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. Acts 5:12-13 When Grandma needed healing, her children knew the…

by Tim NicholsAugust 31, 2021
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How to Worship

Why Sacraments?

Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…

by Peter LeithartAugust 26, 2021
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Biblical Chronology

The Embarrassment of Biblical Chronology

And Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah . . . And Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber . . . and Eber lived thirty-four years and became the father of Peleg . . . and Peleg lived thirty years, and became the…

by James B. JordanAugust 24, 2021
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Hermeneutics

The Fall of Satan

Of course, the title should be something like, “The Fall of the Angel Who Came to be Satan,” but that and other more accurate titles are too cumbersome. The question is: who is Satan, and when and how did he become “Satan” (Adversary, Accuser) and the “devil” (slanderer)? By my…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 19, 2021
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Baptism

Baptismal Rain and the Feast of Booths

In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…

by James B. JordanAugust 17, 2021
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Proverbs

An Antidote for Yuppie Postmillennialism

This piece was originally published in 1989. 1. The Blessed Hope "Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Titus 2:13 I was recently asked how I as a postmillennialist would preach on "The Blessed Hope." This is often…

by James B. JordanAugust 12, 2021

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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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