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

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Epistemology

A Cheer for the Mystics

Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 2, 2013
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Literature

Shadow and Substance in Shakespeare's Venice

Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…

by Peter LeithartAugust 28, 2013
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Liturgy

Liturgy Traps

[fve]http://vimeo.com/72195198[/fve]

by James B. JordanAugust 26, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Victory Food

In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 21, 2013
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Romans

David's Sin and Israel's Salvation, Part I

Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…

by Mark HorneAugust 20, 2013
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Deuteronomy

You are what you eat

Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 15, 2013

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Redeeming “Us”

In a 1989 article on Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 21 in Galatians 3, Ardel Caneday argues that Paul’s use of pronouns in Galatians is not indiscriminate: “In Gal 3:10-4:7, Paul employs the first person when life under the law is in view and the second person when the gentile Galatians’…

September 25, 2014

Are Doers Cursed?

Paul cites Deuteronomy 27:26 in Galatians 3. The passage in Deuteronomy says, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things written in the book of the law to do them.” Paul applies this to “those who are of the works of the law” ( hosoi ex ergon…

September 25, 2014

In A Rush

“In 1849, some ninety thousand young men swarmed to the gold fields (two-thirds of them were American); in 1850, nearly as many more elbowed their way into the scrum, and the throngs kept coming all through the early 1850s. . . . In the four years from 1849 through 1852,…

September 25, 2014

The Faith of Jesus Christ

Ardel Caneday makes an illuminating contribution to Pauline studies in his contribution to The Faith of Jesus Christ . Caneday rightly insists that the contested phrase pistis Christou , “faith of Christ,” cannot be interpreted in isolation. Translators and exegetes who choose to take the phrase as a subjective genitive…

September 24, 2014

Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories abound, on right and left. Some are loony or worse. But in their recent Modern Conspiracy , Emma Jane and Chris Fleming observe that “the act of conspiring . . . is not inherently noxious” (6). After all, “politics, business, and even family units would struggle to function…

September 24, 2014

Up, Up, and Away

Falling Upwards , a history of ballooning by Richard Holmes, deals with an enchanting subject, and Holmes writes the history enchantingly. The story is populated by daredevils. Like Sophie Blanchard, who put on ballooning shows for Napoleon and after Napoleon fell, until her balloon caught fire on July 6, 1819…

September 24, 2014

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