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Writing

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

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Poetry

The Donkey

G.K. Chesterton assumes a surprising and memorable perspective from which to view the events of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The Donkey by: G.K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head…

by Arthur KayApril 14, 2022
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Hermeneutics

The Tree, the Cross, and the Supper

There is a common biblical principle: you must give back what you steal. In the Bible, restitution is repayment with interest. If you rob someone of their money, you have to pay back double what you stole. A thief must pay back fourfold if he steals a sheep, and if…

by Kyle LammottApril 12, 2022
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Isaiah

The King’s Cure

Identifying Isaiah’s suffering servant with the promised Messiah is unthinkable for a Jew because it combines the offices of humble priest and victorious king. While it is frustrating that Jews refuse to see the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53, the reluctance of Christians to interpret the passage in its…

by Mike BullApril 5, 2022
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How to Worship

When Our Men Sing Again

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6 (ESV) The command to praise God is pervasive throughout Scripture. In the verse above the Spirit calls all things with breath to praise the Lord. Song is also clearly featured all throughout Scripture and is a featured…

by Grant Van BrimmerMarch 29, 2022
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Culture

The Transgender Bait and Switch

“Gender is a social construct.” That’s shocking to people who have assumed that gender and sex were synonyms but at least since I was in college, in the ‘80s, we were taught that “gender” refers to the forms, the customs, the traditions that our culture teaches us to define what…

by John CarpenterMarch 22, 2022
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Biblical Studies

Israel, Judah, and the Narrative Flow of the Bible

In Genesis 49, Jacob prophesies about (blesses and curses?) his twelve sons. The first three of them don’t fare well. Jacob recalls Reuben’s offense of taking his concubine (Genesis 35:22) and the murderous violence of Simeon’s and Levi against the Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). He…

by Mark HorneMarch 17, 2022

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Translation, 2 Kings 10

Now to ‘Achav [were] seventy sons in Shomron And wrote Jehu’ scrolls And he sent [to] Shomron to the princes of Yizre’e’l, the elders And to the trustees of ‘Achav, saying, “Now you yourselves according to the entering of this scroll to you And with you [are] the sons of…

June 30, 2005

Anthropology and soteriology

Explaining the meaning of the image of God, Calvin writes, “there is no solidity in Augustine’s speculation, that the soul is a mirror of the Trinity, inasmuch as it comprehends within itself, intellect, will, and memory. Nor is there any probability in the opinion of those who place likeness to…

June 29, 2005
History

Delayed Globalization

In his account of the beginning of World War I, Europe’s Last Summer , David Fromkin notes that globalization was already well underway prior to 1914, and in fact was in some ways more advanced than at any time since: “You could go to practically anywhere in the world without…

June 29, 2005

Modernity thesis revisited

I have been deeply skeptical about the arguments of Jacques Ellul and others concerning our enslavement to technology, as well as the arguments of Peter Berger about the “heretical imperative” that modernity imposes on us. Technological modernity tempts us, as Craig Gay has argued, to act as if God does…

June 29, 2005

High Context Societies

Ronald Simkins has distinguished between “high context” and “low context” societies. In the former, the members of the society share many cultural assumptions and meanings; in the latter, the shared meanings are much thinner and more sporadic. Of course, the distinction is not absolute, since within a relatively “low context”…

June 28, 2005

Eucharistic meditation, June 26

2 Kings 5:17: Naaman said to Elisha, “Your servant will no more offer burnt offering nor will he sacrifice to other gods, but to Yahweh.” Naaman, we noted in the exhortation, was a baptized Gentile convert. That baptism in the Jordan healed him of his leprosy. That baptism was an…

June 26, 2005

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