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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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Hegelian Violence

In Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre , Girard admits that Hegel’s analysis of the master/slave relationship, especially as mediated through Kojeve’s Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (which emphasizes the role of desire), helped shape his understanding of mimetic desire and…

March 27, 2013

Not all equalities are equal

Steven Smith, who teaches law at the University of San Diego, explains how rhetorical appeals to “equality” obscure rather than illuminate public debate. Citing a Harvard Law Review article by Peter Westen (“The Empty Idea of Equality”), he observes that everyone is for equality if it is defined as “like…

March 27, 2013

Place-Taking

Janowski ( The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources ) traces modern doubts about vicarious substitution back to Kant, who argues that guilt, being an “intrinsic personal feature” cannot be transferred. Guilt is not like a financial debt, which can be paid by someone else, but, Kant…

March 27, 2013

Yahweh’s Plan

In his superb essay in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources , Bernd Janowski argues for a “place-taking” interpretation of Isaiah 53. The Servant takes the place of the people to bear their sins. Along the way, he notes some important nuances of the passage, especially…

March 27, 2013

End of the law

Jesus’ death delivers not just from the curse of the law but from the bondage of law itself. Because of Jesus’ death, those in Christ are no longer “under the law.” How does that work? In Jesus - God and Man , Pannenberg offers the following explanation. Jesus was charged…

March 27, 2013

Abel-ness

In his contribution to The Words of the Wise are like Goads (Eisenbrauns, 2013), Russell L. Meek explores the intertextual connections between Ecclesiastes and Genesis. He shows that: “(1) Qohelet relies on the language used to describe the Garden of Eden to describe his own building projects; (2) Qohelet borrows…

March 27, 2013

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