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Apostle Paul

Paul in Prison: Ephesus or Rome?

In the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to hardships in his ministry in Asia, specifically Ephesus (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 15:32; 2 Corinthians 1:8; 4:8-12; 6:4-5; 11:23-25). However, the multiple imprisonments Paul mentions are not fully reflected in Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry — Luke only records a…

by Ralph Allan SmithFebruary 15, 2022
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Epistemology

Vertical Living

After all these months pondering integration, I have come to the point of believing that the dynamic of integration just is the real at its heart. Everything that is real or comes to be real is a dynamo of integrative coherence. I also believe it is true that the real…

by Esther Lightcap MeekFebruary 1, 2022
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Books

Tom Holland and the Liberating Power of Christianity

Have you heard of Tom Holland? Not the young Tom Holland of Spiderman fame. No doubt you’ve heard of him. I’m referring to the middle age Oxford-trained historian who recently wrote Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind . (Both Hollands are British, so you’ll be forgiven for confusing them.)…

by Gerald HiestandJanuary 25, 2022
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Biblical Horizons

"Do This!"

This article was originally published in 1990. (The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what…

by James B. JordanJanuary 19, 2022
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American Culture

The Dominion Trap

This article was originally published in 1990. In Genesis One, God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on…

by James B. JordanJanuary 13, 2022
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Biblical Studies

Will Few Be Saved?

On several occasions the gospels record Jesus teaching that only a few will be saved (Matthew 7:14, Matthew 22:14, and Luke 13:23). Careful readers of Scripture should begin to wrestle with how these passages found in the gospels fit together with other passages that teach that many will be saved…

by Manny LucasJanuary 11, 2022

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Proverbs 25:27-28

PROVERBS 25:27 Like Genesis 1-2, this section of Proverbs 25 establishes a rhythm of “good” and then declares something “not good.” “Good” it is to live in the corner of the roof, and “good” news refreshes the soul; but it is “not good” to eat too much honey. Chapters 24-25…

February 7, 2009
History

Christianity and Fall of Rome

Geza Alfoldy concludes his Social History of Rome with suggestive comments about the relation of Christianity and the fall of the empire. The problem was not that Christianity undermined patriotism; it didn’t. Rather, “The role of Christianity in the collapse of the Roman system of power resulted from the fact…

February 7, 2009

Woe to the vineyard

Isaiah tells a tale of a vineyard (5:1-7), and then issues a series of woes (5:8-23) that culminates in a warning that a nation is going to be summoned to Judah (5:24-30). Jesus follows the same sequence: Parables of the vineyard in chapters 20-21 are followed by woes (ch. 23)…

February 6, 2009

Proverbs 25:23-26

PROVERBS 25:23 This verse gives us a translation issue in the first line. The NASB translates the line “The north wind brings forth rain,” but the KJV says that the north wind “drives away rain.” The verb in question has a range of applications and uses, but the basic idea…

February 6, 2009
Uncategorized

Gladiatorial sacrifice

Barton again: “The Romans’ expectations of the brave gladiator were identical to their expections of the sacrificial victim: the victim in a Roman sacrifice was led to the altar by a slack rope, in order that it might not seem to be dragged by force. Any show of resistance on…

February 5, 2009

Sacramentum

From a 1989 article by CA Barton on gladiatorial games in Rome: When a gladiator entered the arena, “he took a frightful oath, the sacramentum gladiatorim ; he swore to endure being burned, bound, beaten, and slain by the sword . . . . He foreswore all that might ameliorate…

February 5, 2009

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