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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
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Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
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American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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John’s Opponents, again

In his commentary on the Johannine epistles, I. Howard Marshall notes A. Wurm’s thesis that John’s opponents were Jews. John’s opponents claim to know the Father, but deny Jesus is the Christ, a position that is certainly compatible with Judaism. Marshall dismisses Wurm’s thesis because John treats his opponents as…

December 28, 2007

Gospel and Epistle

Brown suggests that the structure of John’s gospel sets the pattern for the first epistle. His outline of the gospel is: A. Prologue, 1:1-18. B. Book of Signs, 1:19-12:50. C. Book of Glory, 13:1-20:29. D. Epilogue, ch. 21. And the first epistle: A. Prologue, 1:1-4. B. Part 1, 1:5-3:10 (God…

December 28, 2007

John’s Adversaries

Raymond Brown notes that a number of scholars have identified the adversaries of 1 John as “Jews who denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.” He finds this implausible since it’s hard to see how Jews could be “looked on as people who placed little emphasis on…

December 28, 2007

John’s Adversaries

Raymond Brown notes that a number of scholars have identified the adversaries of 1 John as “Jews who denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.” He finds this implausible since it’s hard to see how Jews could be “looked on as people who placed little emphasis on…

December 28, 2007
Philosophy

Analytical and Analytical

Peter van Inwagen distinguishes nicely between analytical philosophy as a “particular” form of philosophy and as a “universal” philosophical mode, and gives a tidily potted history: “As a particular, it is a confluence of streams of thought whose springs were in Britain, Austria, Poland and the United States. It has…

December 28, 2007
Literature

Sublimation

According to Paul Quinn (in the TLS), Alexander Theroux’s 700-page Darconville’s Cat was a product of jilted love. “Do your worst,” she had said when Theroux threatened to expose her in fiction, and he did: Theroux “encrypted his former lover’s name in acrostics and anagrams, and even cited her as…

December 28, 2007

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