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

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Advent

Advent and Christmas Music Recommendations

Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…

by John Ahern and Paul BuckleyDecember 23, 2020
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Advent

Between the Altar and the City: Isaiah 65:17-25

In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…

by Casey BedellDecember 22, 2020
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Advent

Why We're the Real Seventh Day Adventists

The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…

by Jerry BowyerDecember 18, 2020
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Biblical Studies

Psalm 23: A Lesson in Reading Biblical Poetry

Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…

by Ryan HandermannDecember 15, 2020
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Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 17 and the Separation of Powers

In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…

by James R. RogersDecember 11, 2020
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Advent

Zechariah and John: A Story in Names

A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…

by Rhys LavertyDecember 8, 2020

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Jenson, God, Time

Here’s my best effort to summarize Robert Jenson’s take on God-and-time, written with faux-Jensonesque pithiness. Is God eternally and infinitely the eternal and infinite God that He is?  Of course.  He’s God. Is God dependent on creation for His fulfillment?  Of course not.  He’s God. The biblical God uniquely does…

November 17, 2009
Theology

Anselm’s God

Ask anyone who recognizes the name Anselm, and they will tell you that he was the formulator of a theory of the atonement in which God is an exacting accountant of honor.  Damaged honor has to be restored; and, tallied up, the damaged honor proves infinite, and so demands infinite…

November 16, 2009

Defined by a cross

Jenseon writes: “The Crucifixion puts it up to the Father: Would he stand to this alleged Son?  To this candidate to be his own self-identifying Word?  Would he be a God who, for example, hosts publicans and sinners, who justifies the ungodly?  The Resurrection was the Father’s Yes.  We may…

November 16, 2009
Theology

Against Rahner

Graced nature, yes.  We are always already encountering God, of course. But not this: “Insofar as this subjective, nonobjective luminosity of the subject in its transcendence is always oriented toward the holy mystery, the knowledge of God is always present unthematically and without name and not just when we begin…

November 16, 2009

Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION Modern atheists try to test God by their own moral and logical standards, and they think they are very, very clever.  They are more evangelical than they know: Humanity’s trial of God is one of the central episodes of the Passion Narrative. THE TEXT “And those who had laid…

November 16, 2009

The Crooked Way

The writer of Hebrews writes: “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.  Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.…

November 15, 2009

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