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Writing

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

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Baptism

For the Children’s Sake | An Alternative Angle on the Paedocommunion Debate

The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…

by Rich LuskNovember 16, 2002
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Covenant

Covenant & Election FAQs

How do covenant and election relate to one another? There are many issues of semantics that enter into this discussion and many issues of real substance, so we need to be careful. If we oversimplify, we can say that election relates to God’s eternal plan to save a people for…

by Rich LuskAugust 20, 2002
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Theologia

Vine, Branches, & Fruit

Shortly after the Last Supper and before his final arrest, Jesus said these words to his remaining eleven faithful disciples: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2002
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Deuteronomy

The Gospel of Deuteronomy

Was Caleb saved by faith or works? Caleb is just one of many thousands of Hebrews who entered the Promised Land after spending years in the wilderness being led by Moses. God had delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and gave them a law at Mount Sinai based on…

by Mark HorneJune 7, 2002
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Romans

Romans and the Role of Israel in the Atonement

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5.7) So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002
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Ephesians

Paul's use of the Decalogue in Ephesians 6:1-3

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6.1-3). Honor your father and your mother, that your…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2002

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Arbitrary Signs

A couple of weeks ago, I mused on whether Saussure would have agreed with Barr’s rejection of the idea that different mentalities are built into different languages. In his superb book on Saussure, Jonathan Culler provides further evidence that Saussure would not agree with Barr. Culler’s argument, to put it…

April 9, 2008

Person and essence

Gilles Emery writes concerning Thomas’s view of essence and person in the Trinity, defending Thomas against Rahnerian-style charges: “There is . . . not ‘derivation’ of persons from an essential act in Thomas. This observation clarifies anew the structure of the treatise on God: the distinction of the two sections…

April 8, 2008

Greatest good

Bonaventure wrote: “Behold, therefore, and observe that the highest good is unqualifiedly that than which no greater can be thought. And this good is such that it cannot rightly be thought of as non-existing, since to exist is absolutely better than not to exist.” So far, so Anselmian. Then Bonaventure…

April 8, 2008

Branch and Stone

The “seven-eyed” stone in Zechariah 3:9 has been variously interpreted - for example, as the crown on the head of the high priest Joshua (the seven eyes being the letters engraved on the crown), as the kingdom of God, as a stone with seven “springs” (in Hebrew, the same word…

April 8, 2008
History

Holy City

Babylon was considered a holy city in the ancient world, its kings consecrated by power given by Marduk. This is the reason the Persians destroyed the temple of Esagila and deported the statue of Marduk to Persia (or, by some accounts, melted it down) when the Babylonians revolted against Persian…

April 7, 2008

Protestantism and the Postmodern Self

Postmodernism has, we are told, “decentered” the modern self, that unified, sovereign, isolated, godlike “thinking thing” discovered by Rene Descartes. The postmodern self is not single but multiple; not sovereign but controlled by external forces; not isolated but “embedded” in the world and in relation; not godlike, but human, all…

April 7, 2008

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