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

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Epistemology

A Cheer for the Mystics

Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 2, 2013
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Literature

Shadow and Substance in Shakespeare's Venice

Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…

by Peter LeithartAugust 28, 2013
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Liturgy

Liturgy Traps

[fve]http://vimeo.com/72195198[/fve]

by James B. JordanAugust 26, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Victory Food

In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 21, 2013
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Romans

David's Sin and Israel's Salvation, Part I

Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…

by Mark HorneAugust 20, 2013
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Deuteronomy

You are what you eat

Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 15, 2013

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Politics

Consumer-based reform

David Goldhill’s article on health care reform in the current issue of the Atlantic bears the provocative title, “How American Health Care Killed My Father.” It opens with the story of his father, who died at 83 from an infection he picked up at a hospital, as he says “one…

August 27, 2009

Productive God, II

Barnes again: “For Gregory the transcendence of God includes the capacity to produce; indeed, Gregory’s conception of this capacity as a dunamis means not only that this capacity exists as a natural capacity in God, but because this capacity is the dunamis of the divine nature, GOd’s kind of existence…

August 26, 2009

Productive God

Michel Rene Barnes ( The Power of God: Dunamis in Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology ) claims that the fourth century Trinitarian debates are not just a debate about relations but a debate about “productivity,” and thus about “power.” The question that divides Eunomius and Gregory of Nyssa, he says,…

August 26, 2009
History

End of Aristocracy

In a TLS (August 14) review of William Doyle’s recent Aristocracy and Its Enemies in the Age of Revolution , David Armitage made some intriguing comments about the sea change in the fortunes of aristocracy that took place in the 18th century. For the French, he points out, nobility was…

August 26, 2009

Vestiges of Spirit

Paul draws a direct analogy between the relation of the human spirit to the human being and the relation of the Holy Spirit to God. Our spirits know the thoughts that are in us, and so the Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). Not only…

August 25, 2009

Vestigiae trinitatis

Is the vestigia tradition valid? Does the NT give us any warrant to think that there will be Trinitarian imprints on the creation? The answer is Yes. 1 Corinthians 12 describes the diversities of gifts from the one Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God (vv. 4-6). Gordon Fee…

August 25, 2009

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