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Writing

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

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Apologetics

Christianity: Who Needs It?

Evangelistic Message to the Uninformed: 1 Timothy 3.14-16 Even though this is written as a sermon for delivery, and even though it was preached in a homiletics class, I decided I can’t post it as a sermon because it was not truly preached at a place where nonchristians wanted to…

by Mark HorneMay 7, 2024
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Acts

Jesus’ Post-Resurrection Appearances

If we only read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we might get the impression that Jesus’ ascension was on resurrection Sunday. Matthew speaks of going to Galilee but he does not put things into a clear time frame. John shows us that Jesus appeared to the disciples eight days…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 1, 2024
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Biblical Studies

The Bible and Western Literature

The most cursory glance at the history of Western literature reveals that it has been deeply influenced by the Bible. Some of the greatest classics of Western literature draw their plots, characters, and ideas largely from Scripture; Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two of the most notable…

by Peter LeithartApril 24, 2024
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Biblical Theology

Inglorious Bastards

Few themes emerge as profoundly and persistently in the streams of biblical narrative as the conflict between light and darkness, and the juxtaposition of humanity with monstrosity. These themes not only weave through the fabric of Scripture, emerging in stories from Genesis to Revelation, but also stitch together the human…

by Kyle LammottApril 17, 2024
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Luke

Mary Magdalene: Sister, Sinner, Saint

In John Wenham’s work, Easter Enigma , he devotes an entire chapter to Mary Magdalene, which is rephrased and summarized here. 1 One of the interesting things that Wenham said was that Mary Magdalene was the second “most favored woman in the Bible.” 2 He adds, “Yet apart from a…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 9, 2024
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Daily Mutual Encouragement

God made man to live in a larger relational context, and even in high rebellion, man cannot escape his created nature. Instead, that nature takes revenge on rebellious man. Autonomous and alone, the self craves absolution but recognizes no authority that might give it; it thirsts for glory but rejects…

by Tim NicholsApril 4, 2024

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Murder and Manuscript

We might not have the Nag Hammadi library if it had not been for a gruesome murder. The collection was found in 1945 by two brothers in Egypt, Muhammed and Kalifah Ali. As Giovanni Filoramo tells it, when the brothers took the jar containing the texts back to their village,…

December 20, 2007
Theology

Guy Waters

One Brian Cosby has a review of Guy Waters’s book on the Federal Vision in the latest issue of the Westminster Journal. After a fair summary of Waters’s book, Cosby levels two charges: First, that Waters “criticizes the various FV proponents’ positions and doctrines appealing to older, unrevised editions that…

December 19, 2007
History

Mr Magoo Abroad

In the October 22 issue of TNR , Walter Russell Mead compares American foreign policy to Mr Magoo, since it seems to “wanter nearsightedly but relatively unscathed past one hazard after another.” The pattern goes back at least to the Jefferson administration, and Mead quickly summarizes Magoo’s foreign policy through…

December 19, 2007
History

Covenant of Peace

Bossy again, from the same essay: He quotes Oberman’s claim that “in the old dispensation the holiness of the Church and its governors was made manifest by their power to transmit to the body of Christians the condition of peace, and conversely that the absence of peace was an indication…

December 19, 2007
History

Priesthood of Plebs

In a 1977 review in Past and Present , John Bossy summarizes an essay by Heiko Oberman about the “closing gap between the sacred and the secular” in late medieval life (Oberman’s description). Bossy says this involved “an abandonment of metaphysical hierarchies in favor of a direct and covenantal partnership…

December 19, 2007
History

The Last Theocrats

In his controversial book, The Stillborn God , Mark Lilla suggests that nineteenth-century German liberalism attempted to raise political theology from the grave to which it had been consigned since Hobbes. Their political theology had little to recommend it. Charlotte Allen sums up in her Weekly Standard review: “The liberal…

December 18, 2007

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