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

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Biblical Studies

A Daughter of Abraham

Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 16, 2019
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Autonomy

Rehabilitating Autonomy

It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…

by Mark HorneApril 9, 2019
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John

Jesus: Preacher of Paradox

Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 2, 2019
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Esther

The Book of Esther in Covenant History

It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…

by James B. JordanMarch 28, 2019
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How to Worship

A Positive View of Music

It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…

by John AhernMarch 26, 2019
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Biblical Theology

The Reopened Wounds of Jacob

In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…

by Alastair RobertsMarch 19, 2019

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Judgment of This World

It’s a joke. It’s a comedy routine. Doom is coming! Doom doom doom! The world is ending, the kingdom is coming. Head for the hills, run, escape! The end is near! Repent! So says John, so repeats Jesus, like long-hairs with picket signs at the street corner. But then it…

November 13, 2014

How To Say, “I Am Righteous”

How many Protestants are comfortable applying the label “righteous” to themselves? How many Protestants can sing or pray the Psalms with a clean conscience, appealing to the Lord to accept them because of their righteousness? How many Protestants instead experience an instinctive mental reservation when they speak of their justification?…

November 12, 2014

1-2 Kings in nuce

This is a gloss and summary of the overview I offer in my Brazos commentary on 1-2 Kings . Though the book is detailed and sometimes convoluted, the overall shape is neatly symmetrical. A. David and Solomon found the United Kingdom; Solomon builds a house. B. Jeroboam founds the Northern…

November 12, 2014

Derrida's Paul Problem

Ward Blanton’s Materialism for the Masses provides a rebuttal to Nietzsche’s claim that Christianity was nothing but pop-Platonism. On the contrary: Paul can be read as offering a “materialist spirituality” that has never been more needed than it is today. There’s something in that, though Blanton’s meandering book makes it…

November 12, 2014
Gratitude

Jesus Was an Ingrate

Jesus was an ingrate. That’s on of the themes of Gratitude: An Intellectual History . Sign up now for the Theopolis newsletter, In Medias Res , and receive a free excerpt of the book. Fill out the simple subscription form here .

November 12, 2014

Fire, Smoke, Brimstone

The army revealed by the sixth seal (Revelation 9:13-21) wears breastplates of “fire, hyacinth, and brimstone” (v. 17a) and breathes out “fire, smoke, and brimstone” (v. 17b), with which it kills a third of humanity (v. 18). Hyacinth is an anomaly on the first list, but essentially the army wears…

November 11, 2014

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