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Writing

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

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Ezra

Ezra: The Aaronic Rest-Giver

If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…

by Rhys LavertyJune 8, 2021
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1 John

1 John in Community

Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…

by Tim NicholsJune 1, 2021
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Hermeneutics

Spending Time with Noah: Reflections on Prepositions in the Flood Narrative

In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…

by Josh JensenMay 25, 2021
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Philosophy

Steven Weinberg Destroyed My Faith

Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 18, 2021
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Colossians

Reconciliation in Colossians 1:20

Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 11, 2021
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Movies

Terror of Knowing Myself

Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 4, 2021

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Seeing God

Deuteronomy and Exodus contradict one another regarding the visibility of God, says Margaret Barker in Temple Mysticism (p. 2). Moses reminds the Israelites, “you heard the sound of words but saw no form” (Deuteronomy 4:12). Exodus 24:10, though, says that Moses and the elders “saw the God of Israel” while…

January 28, 2013
Literature

Syntax is Character

A favorite passage from Emma . Mrs. Elton is picking strawberries: “The best fruit in England — everybody’s favourite — always wholesome. These the finest beds and finest sorts. Delightful to gather for oneself — the only way of really enjoying them. Morning decidedly the best time — never tired…

January 28, 2013
Literature

Austen’s Anglicanism

My review of Laura Mooneyham White’s Jane Austen’s Anglicanism (2011), first published in Credenda Agenda about a year ago. “She was thoroughly religious and devout,” wrote Rev. Henry Austen soon after the death of his beloved sister. Brother James, also an Anglican minister and a poet, added “Hers, Fancy quick,…

January 28, 2013
Literature

Self-critic

January 29, 1813, the day after Pride and Prejudice was published, Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra. It’s the first critique of the book, as Austen beats the reviewers to the punch: She mentioned a friend who “really does seem to admire Elizabeth,:” and adds: “I must confess that…

January 28, 2013
Literature

From Politics to Silence

My favorite passage from Northanger Abbey (Dover Thrift Editions) . Henry Tilney has taken upon himself to instruct Catherine Morland about the aesthetics and the theory of the picturesque: “Delighted with [Catherine’s] progress, and fearful of wearying her with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline,…

January 28, 2013

Eucharistic meditation

Colossians 1:17: He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Pastor Sumpter has said it all: Jesus is enough. If you have Jesus, you have everything you could ever want, more than you could ever need. If you have Jesus, you have knowledge of the will…

January 27, 2013

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