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

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Ephesians

“Be Holy for I am Holy”

Below is an excerpt from Mark Horne’s manuscript from his forthcoming commentary on Ephesians, specifically on Paul’s reference to Christians as “saints” (Ephesians 1:1). “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul greets…

by Mark HorneMarch 25, 2025
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Exodus

The Perishable in the Ark of the Covenant

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt (2 Chronicles 5:10). When Solomon finally brought the ark of the covenant to the finished temple in…

by Jonathan WhiteMarch 18, 2025
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Exodus

The Stages of a Man’s Life and the Second Table of the Law

In As You Like It , Shakespeare famously describes the seven ages of a man’s life. The division of man’s life into stages is not an invention by Shakespeare, nor merely a common medieval artifice, but an expression of the real journey taken in life. Shakespeare seems to divide up…

by Ryan HandermannMarch 13, 2025
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Christology

The Essence of God’s Image

Is there a chief characteristic which best illumines the image of God in Man? What is it exactly that makes Man as a lens through which to see God? Moses thoughtfully and deliberately escorts the reader to the characteristic showcased above all else: humility. Though much ink has been spilled…

by Ben LoveladyMarch 11, 2025
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Liturgy

Two Ways of Being Liturgical: A Baptist Response to the High Church Exodus

Note: This essay is adapted from a talk delivered at the Howell E. Jackson Committee conference on “Foundations of Baptist Education,” held at Union University, Oct. 4-5, 2024. It’s no secret that evangelicals are converting to High Church traditions, a term I will use to refer to Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism,…

by Ryan SinniMarch 4, 2025
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Icons

Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church

In recent years, there has been a flurry of conversions from Protestant Christianity towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, at least in part due to their supposed early church heritage relative to Protestantism. In the words of Rod Dreher, a former Methodist who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, “Many evangelicals seek…

by John CarpenterFebruary 25, 2025

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Times

Choon-Leong Seow has some helpful comments about the “time for this, time for that” poem in Ecclesiastes 3. He points out that the thrust of the section is about God’s control of times and portions. As evidence, he notes that the word “season” us normally used “of predetermined or appointed…

January 7, 2006
Philosophy

Objectivity and incarnation

In his early work on Husserl’s treatise on the origins of geometry, Derrida highlights the critical insight that the objectivity and universality of geometric axioms depends, paradoxically, on their embodiment in writing. On the one hand, geometry is “there for ‘everyone.’” Yet, “how does geometrical ideality (just like that of…

January 7, 2006
Philosophy

The Hebraism of Postmodernism

Postmodernism, as I’ve indicated in previous posts, is many things, some of which are quite inimical to Christian faith. But in important respects, postmodernism - especially the thought of Derrida - is a Hebraic protest against Hellenized philosophy. In his fine recent book on Derrida, James KA Smith suggests that…

January 7, 2006
History

Paradox of Community

Bauman suggests that postmodernity, which is the “age of contingency fur sich,” is also the age of community. Yet, the communities that are possible within postmodern culture are inherently unstable; they are “clouds of communities”: “Such communities will never be anything like Tonnies’s cosy and unreflective (cosy because unreflective) homes…

January 6, 2006
Philosophy

Skepticism

The arguments in favor of skepticism were summarized by Aenesidemus in the first century B.C. in his Pyrrhonian Principles . Aenesidemus brought together the arguments under “ten modes” or “ten tropes,” helpfully summarized at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/#LPA as they were stated by Sextus Empricus. The ten modes are reproduced below. (Mates refers…

January 6, 2006

Quenching Spirit

Reflecting further on the pastoral applications of Solomon’s phrase “shepherding wind”: Every believer is born of the Spirit, and blows where he wills, and a pastor is in the business of shepherding wind. In this context, “quenching the Spirit” might refer to poor shepherding that tries to suppress the wind.…

January 6, 2006

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