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Writing

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

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Lent

Embrace Pessimism

Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…

by Bogumil JarmulakFebruary 21, 2024
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Biblical Theology

2 Trees of Eden & What They Mean: Knowledge of Good & Evil vs. Life

If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…

by Mark BriansFebruary 13, 2024
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Death

Training to Die

“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…

by Mandi GerthFebruary 7, 2024
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Jonah

Jonah’s Backward Exodus

In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…

by Tim SuffieldJanuary 30, 2024
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Revelation

Where is the Tree of Knowledge in New Jerusalem?

“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…

by David AppoldJanuary 23, 2024
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Luke

The Test of Adultery

Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…

by Ben LoveladyJanuary 17, 2024

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Literature

Richardson’s children

What is going on in Samuel Richardson’s fiction that can shape such diverse offspring as Rousseau, the Marquis de Sade, and Jane Austen (who loved Sir Charles Grandison )?

March 13, 2007
Literature

Richardson’s children

What is going on in Samuel Richardson’s fiction that can shape such diverse offspring as Rousseau, the Marquis de Sade, and Jane Austen (who loved Sir Charles Grandison )?

March 13, 2007
History

Quantifiable love

In his Inquiry into the original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue , the Irish Presbyterian moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson suggested an equation for calculating love: “The Quantity of Love toward any person is in a compound Proportion of the apprenhended Causes of Love in him, and of the…

March 13, 2007

Luther’s hermeneutics

In a 1964 article in Theology Today , Gerhard Ebeling laid out some of the hermeneutical directions found in Luther’s early writings. He focuses on three areas where Luther displays both some continuity with the terminology and problems of medieval interpretation, but also breaks free in significant ways. At the…

March 12, 2007

Luther’s hermeneutics

In a 1964 article in Theology Today , Gerhard Ebeling laid out some of the hermeneutical directions found in Luther’s early writings. He focuses on three areas where Luther displays both some continuity with the terminology and problems of medieval interpretation, but also breaks free in significant ways. At the…

March 12, 2007

Quadriga on the cross

The quadriga makes a neat match with Rosenstock-Huessy’s cross of reality: Historical = past Tropological = inside Allegorical = outside Anagogical = future

March 12, 2007

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