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

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Ephesians

Law and Gospel in Presbyterianism

The Reformed Doctrine Stated & Briefly Vindicated from Scripture THE REFORMED VIEW ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL PRESBYTERIAN DOCTRINE The contrast between Law and Gospel is often treated as if it were a uniquely Lutheran idea, but Reformed doctrine also uses such a formulation. In fact, the distinction is important to understanding…

by Mark HorneMay 22, 2004
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Justification

Justification is the Gospel

According to N. T. Wright : By “the gospel” Paul does not mean “justification by faith” itself. He means the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord. To believe this message, to give believing allegiance to Jesus as Messiah and Lord, is to be justified in the present…

by Mark HorneMay 22, 2004
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Justification

Justification & Adoption

Imagine two strangers who happen to be standing on the same subway train; we’ll call one Joe and the other Larry. Joe accidentally steps on the Larry’s foot so that he, in a flash of pain, thinking Joe did it intentionally, resorts to name calling and says something about Joe’s…

by Mark HorneMay 22, 2004
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Eucharist

Children at the Table

Imagine being a small child at an orphanage. One day, one of your caretakers comes rushing to you as you play in the common yard. “I have great news!” she tells you, excitedly. “What is it?” you ask. “A wonderful family has adopted you. They’re at the courthouse right now…

by Mark HorneMay 20, 2004
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Federal Vision

The Necessity of New Obedience

The Westminster Standards, Repentance, & Pardon REPENTANCE ENTAILS ALL OF LIFE According the Westminster Divines, “repentance to life” is an “evangelical” (WCF 15.1) and “saving” (WLC #87) “grace”. By it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness…

by Mark HorneMay 19, 2004
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Biblical Horizons

Liturgical Man, Liturgical Woman — Part 1

Click HERE for an audio version of this article. For Part 2, click HERE . The ordination of women to the Christian ministry, specifically the pastoral office of overseeing worship and performing preaching and the Lord’s Supper, is a recent development in Church history. From the early church until the…

by James B. JordanMay 5, 2004

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Hegel on Trinity

From an article by Anselm Min. “The three Persons are thus mutually internal in the unity and totality of the divine process, of which the Father is the originating principle, the Son the pluralizing, and the Spirit the reintegrating and unifying principle, and from which none could be separately considered.…

October 20, 2009
Theology

Israel’s Difference

Robert Jenson writes, “the identity of Israel’s God, his difference from other gods, is precisely that Israel’s God is not eternal in the way other gods are, not God in the same way.  That the past guarantees the future is exactly the deity of the gods, but Yahweh always challenges…

October 19, 2009

Consider the doves

Consider the birds, Jesus said.  And the lilies. Solomon had: “How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are!  Your eyes are doves” and “Like a lily among the thorns, so is my darling among the daughters.” Jesus assures us that our Father feeds and clothes us.  He might…

October 19, 2009
Philosophy

Hegel’s project

Hegel wants to rebut the Enlightenment dismissal of Christianity.  He doesn’t do this by reaching back to pre-critical forms of faith, but by ingesting criticism, deconstructing traditional theology, and reconstructing what he claims is a purer form of faith.  Rowan Williams captures the reconstructive process very concisely: “from the fundamental…

October 19, 2009

Not Good For Man

It is not good for man to be alone.  Hegel says, It is impossible. “I have my self-consciousness not in myself but in the other.  I am satisfied and have peace with myself only in this other - and I am only because I have peace with myself; if I…

October 19, 2009
Philosophy

Thought and context

Summarizing “logic and spirit” in Hegel, Rowan Williams describes the pressure toward relationality that is inherent in any act of thought: “We think in relation to particulars; but we cannot, quite strictly cannot, think particulars simply as particulars, because we can’t concretely think a pure self-identity.  To think a particular…

October 19, 2009

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