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Writing

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

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Biblical Horizons

Writing and Thinking

During one of my AAPC lectures I read a portion of Richard Mitchell’s provocative little book The Underground Grammarian . Here’s the portion I read: The mind is a rudderless wanderer blown here or there by any puff of breeze. If I mention watermelons, you must think of watermelons; if…

by Jeff MeyersJanuary 14, 2008
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Biblical Studies

Psalms 23-29: Analysis

This is the donation thank-you essay for January 2008. Our studies in the Psalms go out month by month in response to donations. I’m putting this one up here as an example, and also because the version I actually mailed out contained several egregious arithmetical errors! So, here is the…

by James B. JordanJanuary 6, 2008
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American Culture

The Case Against Western Civilization, Parts 1-7

Part 1: Introduction The collapse of the Western tradition in the United States, seen in the hostility to Christianity in government and education, and the elimination of “traditional” or “canon” learning from our institutions of middle and higher learning, provides a crisis and an opportunity for serious believers at the…

by James B. JordanDecember 5, 2007
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Theologia

On Forgiving Oneself: Nine Reasons Why It Can Be Appropriate

While “forgiving oneself” is widely accepted in the secular world as a legitimate and needful thing to do, Christians are rightly suspicious. After all, God is the one who forgives. When we sin against other people, we need to seek their forgiveness, not our own. Nevertheless after looking at Vine’s…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2007
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Biblical Studies

Every Word Matters to the Story

This was originally published as HIStory in the column, “A Pastor’s Perspective” in Ligonier Ministrie’s Tabletalk Magazine . I am not sure of the date but it was probably published in 1999 or 2000. Quick! What’s the basic message of the Bible? Summarize it in as few words as possible…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2007
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Church Government

The Pastorate and the Presbytery

A Brief Explanation of What a Presbytery Is & Why Pastors in Presbyterian Denominations are Members of Them A belief in the primacy of the local congregation of the Church, I think, reflects the gut feeling of most North American Evangelicals. As a result, the form of Church government universally…

by Mark HorneJune 5, 2007

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History

Purity and objectivity

Proctor again, summarizing a 1938 article on “Science and the Social Order” from Robert Merton: “the ideal of ‘pure science’ serves a dual function in modern society. On the one hand, the exaltation of pure science represents ‘a defense against the invasion of norms that limit directions of potential advance…

October 28, 2008
History

Revival of purity

Proctor yet again, describing the division of political economy into separate disciplines of sociology and economics in the nineteenth century: “Social theory in the eyes of the young sociologists might strive to become scientific, but to do so it must abandon its craft or practical-political origins and restrict itself to…

October 28, 2008
Philosophy

Artifice and nature

Proctor again, speaking of Renaissance science: “In the science of the moderns, there arises a curious reversal of the order of art and nature. Art becomes the standard against which nature is judged. Francis Bacon’s ‘nature in distress’ - nature distraught by experiment - is as genuine as nature left…

October 28, 2008
Philosophy

Pure knowledge

The drive for purity in knowledge is an ancient one. Robert Proctor ( Value-Free Science? ) sees this impulse in Plato and Aristotle. For the former, knowledge is pure “in the degree to which it makes no appeal to practical arts. Thus Plato criticized Eudoxus, Archytas, and Menaechmus for trying…

October 28, 2008

Anarthrous God

CK Barrett argues in his John commentary that the anarthrous theos of John 1:1 (emphasized by Arians everywhere and at all times) shows that “the Word is God, but is not the only being of whom this is true; if ho theos had been written it would have been implied…

October 28, 2008
Uncategorized

Word came, saying

After Genesis 15, the next time the “word of God came . . . saying” is in Samuel. The word of God comes to Samuel, saying that Saul is rejected (1 Samuel 15:10), and again comes to Nathan to deliver the promise to David (2 Samuel 7:4). The connection of…

October 27, 2008

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