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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones

[This essay was originally published in 1988. Given the situation that our new national socialists are getting the world into, I thought it might be useful to reprint it here. – JBJordan] The Bible has quite a bit to say about gold, silver, and precious stones, and the Bible always…

by James B. JordanMay 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

The Pastoral Function

I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it. There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a…

by James B. JordanMay 17, 2009
Biblical Horizons

The Virgin Tomb: The Womb of the New Birth

James Jordan recently pointed out in private conversation how appropriate it is, in John’s Gospel, that Nicodemus is present both to ask Jesus about being born again, and to see Jesus re-enter the womb of the mother. Nicodemus rhetorically asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?…

by Mark HorneMay 8, 2009
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Romans

Romans 7

This is a problematic and much discussed passage. I’ve been discussing it in another forum, and have decided to move it here and present some very preliminary observations about it. One large question is this: Who is the speaker here and what is his situation? Traditionally, the speaker is seen…

by James B. JordanApril 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

Good New Sci-Fi

1. The current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes a good fantasy novella by John C. Wright, who since his conversion has been writing Christianly. This is a fine fantasy with nods to C. S. Lewis and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and probably Gene Wolfe as well.…

by James B. JordanApril 15, 2009
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American Culture

The Name of Jesus

“It is an experience of our days that the spoken name of Jesus alone exercises an unforeseen power; and the effort which it cost to speak this name is perhaps connected to some faint apprehension of the power which is inherent within it. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 20, 2009

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Job’s flesh

Keil and Delitzsch argue that the phrasing of Job 19:25-26 doesn’t directly point to a hope for bodily resurrection. When his flesh is cut off (like a tree; the piel of the same verb is in Isaiah 10:34), he will see God “from ( min ) his flesh.” But, as…

June 20, 2009

Proverbs 27:1-4

PROVERBS 27:1 Like James (4:13-17), Solomon teaches us that we don’t have control over the future. We are creatures, living in sequence from moment to moment. The past leaves its imprint in our memories and in the artifacts that surround us – books and buildings, roads and institutions. But we…

June 18, 2009
Uncategorized

Powers Unmasked

In a superb article in a 1963 issue of Past & Present , GEM de Ste. Croix asks why Christians were persecuted. He finds the answer in Christian exclusiveness, their refusal to pay homage to the gods, which endangered the pax deorum on which the empire depended. Both common pagans…

June 17, 2009

Odysseus’ wisdom

The idea of Odysseus as a hero of mind or thought has an ancient pedigree. The Pythagoreans interpreted Odysseus as a thinking man who passed through the underworld on a path of denial of the flesh and escape from the eternal round of reincarnation. Proclus wrote, “Many are the wanderings…

June 15, 2009

Eucharistic meditation

Proverbs 9:1-5: Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars; s he has slaughtered her meat, she has mixed her wine, she has also furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens, she cries out from the highest places of the city, “w hoever is…

June 14, 2009

Exhortation

“With what disgust, contempt, and hatred Christ must look upon every second of our lives, the reviewing of which must be a long torture for us, were such a judgment in our future!” These are the words of a Presbyterian minister, writing in a prominent evangelical magazine. He’s trying to…

June 14, 2009

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