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

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Romans

Robbing Temples

Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…

by Mark HorneOctober 15, 2024
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Genesis

Regarding Abel’s Offering

Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…

by Scott FairbanksOctober 3, 2024
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Hermeneutics

The Trinity and Cross in Creation

At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…

by James BejonOctober 1, 2024
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Deuteronomy

Axe Heads and Parapets: Legal Edge Cases?

How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…

by Josh JensenSeptember 24, 2024
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Political Theology

The Church Builds the World

1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…

by Gary YoungSeptember 17, 2024
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Matthew

That He would be called a Nazarene

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…

by Lyndon JostSeptember 10, 2024

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Philosophy

Kant, Religion, Book 4

Kant’s Book 4 is on “counterfeit service” or “religion and priestcraft.” In this book, Kant launches a critique of cultic religion. He is not condemning cult and ritual per se, but says that it must not be construed as divine service. The statutory laws that govern religious cult, and the…

September 11, 2007
Philosophy

Kant, Religion, Book 3

Some notes on Book 3 of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone . Having established that there is an evil principle at work in humanity as well as a predisposition to good, Kant begins book 3 with the claim that morals is always a matter of warfare and battle.…

September 10, 2007
Literature

Bowdlerized Austen, 2

Austen’s great-nephew Lord Brabourne perpetuated the Victorianized Austen in his edition of Austen’s letters. He found Regency England far too frank and coarse for his tastes, and removes Austen’s occasional comments about the seeming perpetual pregnancies of her sisters-in-law and other acquaintances. And for Austen’s comment concerning a party that…

September 10, 2007
Literature

Bowdlerized Austen

In his Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England , Roger Sales tells about the formation of the “Austen industry.” The industry, Sales claims, started nearly as soon as Austen was in the grave. Her brother Henry’s memoir, published the year after her death, offers a conventionally pious and domestic…

September 10, 2007

Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION As we follow Jesus’ commandments, we become agents for advancing God’s reign and His redemptive righteousness. Marriages are transformed into life-long partnerships in ministry, and our words are become truthful. THE TEXT “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’…

September 10, 2007

Eucharistic exhortation

1 Corinthians 6:15-17: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one…

September 9, 2007

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