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Writing

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

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Biblical Horizons

Puritans v. Reformed Worship: (Part Two of a Book Chapter Review)

Continuing through The Worship of the English Puritans by Horton Davies: The author gives some of his own appraisals rather than immediately quoting Durel, even though that is how he began his chapter. In Davies’ opinion, while the Puritans would invoke their own interpretation of Scripture in order to condemn,…

by Mark HorneFebruary 9, 2008
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Ephesians

Luther Should Have Inserted “Alone” a Second Time in Romans

What follows are from a couple of posts on my blog. I hoped to do a series. If I do follow up, I will probably want to do it here on the BH blog rather than my own. Feedback welcome: It is no secret that some have been scathingly critical…

by Mark HorneFebruary 9, 2008
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Baptism

Jesus’ Baptism and ours

Jeremy Sexton wrote this in an earlier line of discussion: “Along those lines, I think what we most often miss in our theology of baptism (though Calvin didn’t miss this) is that Christian baptism — if it “is” anything that came before — is Jesus’ water baptism. In our baptism,…

by James B. JordanFebruary 8, 2008
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Numbers

Israel was not (all of) the Church

Jeff pointed out that baptism is not Christian circumcision . Looking at the comments, I think it might be helpful to point out that Israel was not the Church . In the new creation, the idea of an “unbaptized Christian” is either very temporary or an anomaly. Those who came…

by Mark HorneFebruary 6, 2008
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Parables

Parables, Part I

Once a upon a time, one Sunday morning, a pastor mounted his pulpit for the sermon and said the following: A troubled young man walked into a downtown high-rise building. As he approached the directory on the wall, he took out a small booklet and looked back and forth from…

by Jeff MeyersFebruary 5, 2008
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Exodus

What is a Prophet? (Friendship and Justification)

If you are, say, leading a Bible study in Genesis, you might notice that right after the covenant is renewed and circumcision is established (ch 17) that we see Abraham eating and drinking with God (ch 18). After that meal, God makes a point of saying the he should share…

by Mark HorneFebruary 3, 2008

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Tale of Two Women

In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron object to Moses’ Cushite wife. Miriam becomes leprous, is excluded from the camp, and restored on the eighth day. That is to say: The Messiah’s Jewish sister objects to the Gentile bride, and is cast out of the camp, but then she is cleansed…

November 9, 2007

Sacrificial sequence

Hicks again: He organizes his discussion of the New Covenant fulfillment of the sacrificial system in the phrases “life surrendered,” “life transformed,” and “life shared.” Reconciliation is made on the basis of life surrendered, blood shed, but that’s not the end point of the reconciling sacrifice. This enables him to…

November 8, 2007

Burning flesh

FCN Hicks writes in his 1946 book on sacrifice that the burning of an animal on the altar was not destructive but transforming: “The offering is not destroyed but transformed, sublimated, etherealised, so that it can ascend in smoke to the heaven above, to the dwelling-place of God.” He cites…

November 8, 2007
Philosophy

Signs and domination

Only God, Augustine argues in his treatise on music, acts on rational souls directly, “per seipsum.” Human beings operate on one another’s souls through intervening bodies, that is, through the words and other signs. God has arranged the world this way, he says, as a check on human ambition and…

November 8, 2007

Signa data

Many translators and interpreters of Augustine’s de doctrina Christiana translate “signa data” as “conventional signs.” But there’s something to be said for taking the phrase literally (as some commentators do). The difference between naturalia and data, Augustine says, is that the latter occur by the will of a sign-user while…

November 7, 2007
History

Sixteenth-century exchanges

Shakespeare recognized that something new was in the offing, but the actual situation of England and Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was far more complicated that Timon of Athens suggests. The gift-society to which Timon is attached was not being completely replaced, nor was the market the main…

November 7, 2007

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