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

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Romans

Robbing Temples

Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…

by Mark HorneOctober 15, 2024
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Genesis

Regarding Abel’s Offering

Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…

by Scott FairbanksOctober 3, 2024
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Hermeneutics

The Trinity and Cross in Creation

At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…

by James BejonOctober 1, 2024
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Deuteronomy

Axe Heads and Parapets: Legal Edge Cases?

How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…

by Josh JensenSeptember 24, 2024
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Political Theology

The Church Builds the World

1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…

by Gary YoungSeptember 17, 2024
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Matthew

That He would be called a Nazarene

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…

by Lyndon JostSeptember 10, 2024

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Sermon Notes

INTRODUCTION Jesus sows the word, and it falls on different sorts of soil. The right response is to give up everything in order to gain the kingdom ( 13:44 -46), but those closest to Jesus scorn Him ( 13:53 -58). THE TEXT “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure…

May 26, 2008

Eucharistic meditation, Second Sunday of Trinity

Matthew 13:33: The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened. We noted in the sermon that leaven often represents something dangerous, poisonous, evil, contemptible, unclean, abominable. Leaven was not allowed on the altar of God,…

May 25, 2008

Exhortation, Second Sunday of Trinity

As much as pragmatic Americans might wish it to be otherwise, the Bible is not an answer-book. It includes advice, and laws, and rules, but a lot of it consists of puzzling prophecy, ancient history, obscure parables and apparently abstract theology. What are we supposed to get from that? We…

May 25, 2008

Perichoretic origin

Athanasius: “the Son is in the Father . . . because the whole being of the Son is proper to the Father’s ousia , as radiance from light and a stream from a fountain; so that whosoever sees the Son, sees what is proper to the Father and knows that…

May 23, 2008
Theology

Remote God

“Classical theism” is charged with rendering God remote, immovable, unfriendly. But the reality is the opposite; Nicene orthodoxy said God was near, far nearer than Arius wanted Him to be. Thomas Weinandy writes: “The Creed . . . professes that this God who is Father is almighty and thus, contrary…

May 23, 2008

Full Frontal Phrenology

When Hillary and W. got to college, both had posture photos taken, nude or in underwear. So says M. F. Burnyeat in the May 16 TLS . Burnyeat adds, “Officially, the idea was that the pictures would reveal which students needed remedial treatment for poor posture. In reality, the project…

May 23, 2008

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