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

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Ephesians

“Be Holy for I am Holy”

Below is an excerpt from Mark Horne’s manuscript from his forthcoming commentary on Ephesians, specifically on Paul’s reference to Christians as “saints” (Ephesians 1:1). “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul greets…

by Mark HorneMarch 25, 2025
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Exodus

The Perishable in the Ark of the Covenant

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt (2 Chronicles 5:10). When Solomon finally brought the ark of the covenant to the finished temple in…

by Jonathan WhiteMarch 18, 2025
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Exodus

The Stages of a Man’s Life and the Second Table of the Law

In As You Like It , Shakespeare famously describes the seven ages of a man’s life. The division of man’s life into stages is not an invention by Shakespeare, nor merely a common medieval artifice, but an expression of the real journey taken in life. Shakespeare seems to divide up…

by Ryan HandermannMarch 13, 2025
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Christology

The Essence of God’s Image

Is there a chief characteristic which best illumines the image of God in Man? What is it exactly that makes Man as a lens through which to see God? Moses thoughtfully and deliberately escorts the reader to the characteristic showcased above all else: humility. Though much ink has been spilled…

by Ben LoveladyMarch 11, 2025
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Liturgy

Two Ways of Being Liturgical: A Baptist Response to the High Church Exodus

Note: This essay is adapted from a talk delivered at the Howell E. Jackson Committee conference on “Foundations of Baptist Education,” held at Union University, Oct. 4-5, 2024. It’s no secret that evangelicals are converting to High Church traditions, a term I will use to refer to Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism,…

by Ryan SinniMarch 4, 2025
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Icons

Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church

In recent years, there has been a flurry of conversions from Protestant Christianity towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, at least in part due to their supposed early church heritage relative to Protestantism. In the words of Rod Dreher, a former Methodist who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, “Many evangelicals seek…

by John CarpenterFebruary 25, 2025

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The Beast

I n an 1881 article , F.W. Farrar examined the case for Nero as the sea beast of Revelation 13. Many contemporary scholars dismiss this because they believe that Revelation was written decades after Nero. Farrar makes a circumstantial and exegetical case for the identification, and in the process provides…

August 23, 2016

It Takes A City

I n a 1977 Daedalus article on “ The Family and the City ,” French historian Philippe Aries argued that “the real roots of the present domestic crisis lie not in our families, but in our cities.” As cities “deterioriated” and urban culture weakened, “the omnipotent, omnipresent family took upon…

August 23, 2016

Born in Zion

P salm 87 is a hymn to Zion. The name “Zion” occurs four times, and the Psalm declares Yahweh's love for Zion (v. 1), the glory of Zion as city of God (v. 2), the joy that fills Zion (v. 6). It could be a “nationalistic” hymn to Israel's ancient…

August 22, 2016

Purity System

I n her contribution to The Peace of God , Amy Remensnyder examines the eleventh-century crackdown on simony, clerical marriage and unchastity, and the clergy's involvement in war. These were characterized as pollutions of the clergy and the church, and the rules were framed as purity prohibitions. Gregory VII denounced…

August 19, 2016
American Religion

Nature's Nation

A mericans have often justified American order and American exceptionalism by invoking “the myth of nature,” write Robert Hughes and C. Leonard Allen in Illusions of Innocence (205). They “first employed this myth to justify freedom from tyranny. But they soon began equating nature with particular dimensions of national life…

August 19, 2016

Mary Douglas and Taboo

I n a review of Jacob Milgrom's Anchor Bible Leviticus commentary, Jonathan Klawans provides a helpful summary of the achievement of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger : Against especially Robertson Smith and Frazer, Douglas argued that avoidance behaviors could no longer be dismissed as something inherently or distinctly primitive. Douglas…

August 19, 2016

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