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Acts

Journeys of the Prophets in Luke-Acts

In an earlier paper 1 I argued that the story of Jonah belongs in the book of KINGS. Jonah and the unnamed Judean prophet in 1K13 are paired by the author through literary links. The Judean prophet travels longitudinally to confront national paganism and is killed but not swallowed by…

by Scott FairbanksNovember 15, 2022
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Biblical Theology

The Liturgical Day and the Eschatological Day

The Scriptures have much to say about “the day.” “This is the day that the Lord has made,” sings the Psalmist (Psalm 118:24). But what exactly is the day ? Or, more broadly, what even is a day? Days make up human life like water, light, and air. There’s no…

by Jackson ShepardNovember 8, 2022
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John

Worship in Spirit and Truth

According to the Westminster Confession of Faith 21:5, “God is to be worshipped everywhere, in spirit and truth, …” A similar phrase is found in the OPC’s Directory for Public Worship (II.6). In my experience in the OPC and other Reformed churches, the phrase is often interpreted to mean that…

by Brian NolderNovember 1, 2022
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Genesis

Through New Eyes: Eve's Desire and Adam's Rule

Introduction In Genesis 3:16, after the fall, God said that Eve would “desire” her husband and that her husband would “rule” over her. It is popular for Christians to interpret Eve's desire as sinful, that she would try to usurp her husband's authority. Likewise, some interpret Adam's rule as sinful,…

by Adam McIntoshOctober 25, 2022
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American Culture

LGBTQ+ Is Not Enough! — TMPZ+

White Western/Christian society has long discriminated against lesbians and homosexuals — ever since the days of Moses — who was neither white nor Christian, but that is beside the point — who claimed that God gave him revelation about what a man or woman is and how they should relate…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 18, 2022
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Humor

A History of Quiet Times

They Found a Book in a Wall, You Won’t Believe What Happens Next The secret behind the history of quiet times will make your quiet times more effective than ever. One of the enduring mysteries of American Evangelicalism is the question of the source of Quiet Times: A Handbook ,…

by George EdemaOctober 11, 2022

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Razoring Rahner

When it’s all said and done, Rahner multiplies levels of nature and the supernatural. There is the purely conceptual “pure nature,” which has never existed in reality but must be possible if we are to think grace as grace. There are actually existing natures, the concrete reality of created beings.…

March 1, 2008
Uncategorized

City of God, Book 19

Some thoughts on Book 19 of Augustine’s City of God, mostly taken from an article by Oliver O’Donovan (the revised version of the essay published in O’Donovan and O’Donovan, Bonds of Imperfection). O’Donovan points out that the the issues in this book are broadly moral rather than specifically political. It…

March 1, 2008

Kerr on Rahner

In the opening pages of his Theology After Wittgenstein , Fergus Kerr, O.P., mounts a Wittgensteinian critique of Rahner’s epistemology, which, he concludes, is thoroughly indebted to Cartestian philosophy. Due to the influence of Cartesian categories, Kerr sees Rahner’s theology determined by “an extremely mentalist-individualist epistemology” that contributes to a…

March 1, 2008

Revelation of Justice

One of Dabney’s answers to the charge that imputation is unjust is tat “God forbids imputation of capital guilt by human magistrates,” but “He customarily claims the exercise of it in His own government.” The difference he explains by saying “Human magistrates are themselves under law, in common with those…

March 1, 2008

Peter and the Jews

Several students have observed the parallels between Peter’s denial in John 18 and the denial of Jesus by the Jews in chapter 19. Peter denies three times, in a pattern of 1 + 2; so do the Jews. Between then, contrasting to these denials, is Pilate’s threefold confession of Jesus’…

February 29, 2008

Multiple Ends of Atonement

Dabney thinks that Calvinists have offered “unsatisfactory” answers to objections to its doctrine of definite atonement. Two sorts of objections in particular: “From the universal offer of atonement through Christ, and from Scripture.” He answers these objections, and then goes on into a detailed discussion of the “relation of limited…

February 29, 2008

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