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Biblical Horizons

An Older Essay on the Gospel Order

I thought it might be good to put this up here, since it is 14 years old, and itself reflects earlier discussion. From this you can see that we at BH have been considering this notion for quite some time. Clearly, the last word has not been said. — James…

by James B. JordanFebruary 14, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

Chiasms in James

Hopefully, my commentary on James will be out later this year. But here are a few chiasms for your consideration. I think the James 5 chiasm orginally came from Doug Jordan. The entire book of James is focused on how the pastors and leaders (“brothers”) of the church use their…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 14, 2008
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Job

Parables | (Part 2)

In my first post I noted that the parables of Jesus were not simply illustrative stories. They are really nothing like the kind of simple, homely illustrations that preachers often use to explain difficult concepts to their congregations. Just to be clear: there’s nothing wrong with illustrating one’s sermonic statements.…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 14, 2008
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Ephesians

The Praise Precedes the Indicative

Ephesians is often treated as a pure type example of the Pauline method that “the indicative preceds the imperative.” But what Paul does first is pray . Simply reading verse 3 and following involves readers in a prayer of thanksgiving to God–and much more so for those listening to the…

by Mark HorneFebruary 14, 2008
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Luke

"I Came Not to Call the Righteous, but Sinners"

Yesterday, I took part with my oldest son in a church-sponsored city outreach project (not because I’m especially prone to such behavior but because my son has a Boy Scout requirement that this would help him meet). Before we were sent out on our various jobs, the leader gave a…

by Mark HorneFebruary 11, 2008
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Biblical Studies

The Sequence of the Four Gospels

There is a scene in Prince Caspian , the second in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia that helps explain why it is we have four Gospels, that is four accounts of the Good News of Jesus Christ—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is the account of Lucy’s longed-for experience…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 9, 2008

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Oldest Language?

T his is old news, but still: In late 2016 Science News reported on the work of archeologist and epigraphy Douglas Petrovich, who claims that “Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews…

July 28, 2017

Housing

F rom a TLS piece published late last year (I've unfortunately and inexplicably lost the reference): It's striking how many of those associated with Bloomsbury articulated the idea that houses, as well as being shaped physically by the tastes and attitudes of those who live in them, also possess a…

July 28, 2017
Jane Austen

Darcy's Shirt

C olin Firth's dive into Pemberly's pond is either the highlight or the lowlight of the epic A&E P&P . For newbies, it's a a highlight; for purists, it represents a capitulation to the standards of contemporary romance and it's not even in the book ! Alana Semuels presents a…

July 28, 2017

Eternity after Nietzsche

A decade ago, self-proclaimed “born-again pagan” and New Yorker-proclaimed “Sage of Yale Law” Anthony Kronman responded to critics in Comment with this: What did Nietzsche mean when he said, “God is dead?” He meant that the idea of a world beyond this one, from whose vantage point everything here “down…

July 28, 2017

Triune Perfections

In an essay on God's attributes ( Christian Dogmatics , 65-6) argues, rightly, that God's attributes are “shaped by God's triune nature.” Aseity, for instance, “must be teased out in a trinitarian fashion It is not the case that God is Stoic needlessness, or that God is self-causal force. Rather,…

July 28, 2017

Israel Among the Nations

T he similarities between Israel and paganism have vexed, tantalized, and intrigued Christian thinkers for millennia. It was a central issue in the apologetic writings of the early church, and from the patristic through the medieval period Christian intellectuals attempted to fit paganism within the framework of redemptive history. I…

July 27, 2017

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