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abortion
Abortion

Letters on Abortion, (Part 1)

What is below is fairly self-explanatory. This is an exchange I had with a local liberal clergyman on the subject of abortion. The circumstances of the debate are included in the text itself. I initially e-mailed this out to a list of clergy in our city after a local (and…

by Richard BledsoeNovember 17, 2015
wall-2
Ezra

The Perfumed Butler and the Wisdom of Civil Obedience

The seemingly humdrum parts of the Bible often hide overlooked wisdom. Take, for example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their stories aren't exactly the most gripping or memorable. They are far less concrete than, say, the story of the Exodus. No one in Ezra is stricken blind or devoured…

by Christian LeithartNovember 10, 2015
sparkler
Happiness

"Happy! Happy! Happy!" Authentic Happiness and Its Knock-Offs

For most of the past century, philosophical perspectives on life in the western world have been overtly grim and pessimistic. The optimism of the Enlightenment, generated by confidence in the scientific method and the potential of an increasingly civilized humanity to redress the evils of the world, was shattered by…

by Bill DeJongNovember 5, 2015
aaron-burden-1ebsmyrau-s-unsplash
Hermeneutics

How Does a Chiasm Mean?

Chiastic structures are found all over the Bible, and in recent decades commentators have become more adept at spotting them. But identifying these literary structures is only part of the challenge. There remains the challenge of understanding what they mean. Part of the answer is found in the recognition that…

by Steve JefferyNovember 3, 2015
last-supper
Eucharist

How To Change the World, (Part 2)

Part 1 can be found HERE . Clearly, more than just getting worship right is important in changing the world, but since worship is the central act of God’s people, performed on the first day of the week at the center of the world before the very face of God,…

by James B. JordanOctober 29, 2015
solomonsidolatry
Biblical Theology

Big Love: A History of Stolen Fruit

“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed.” ( Luke 11:27 ) Arguing for Christian morality in a secular society is difficult. A culture which accepts evolutionary dogma has no intellectual place — or inherent desire — for absolute morality, since it believes morality…

by Mike BullOctober 27, 2015

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In Thirds

When the angel blows the first trumpet, one-third of the land and one-third of the trees, along with all the grass, gets burned up by the fire coming from heaven (Revelation 8). It sets a trend. Throughout the trumpet section, things are destroyed by thirds. In part, this this is…

September 19, 2014

Give Peace A Chance

The editors of The Question of Peace in Modern Political Thought argue that peace has received more attention from philosophers than is often admitted, but they don’t think that it’s received nearly enough attention. Their collection aims to address that gap with essays on Luther, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant,…

September 19, 2014

Smoky

After the Lamb ascends to heaven, the living creatures and elders suddenly have bowls ( phiale ) of incense (Revelation 5:8). The incense is identified with the “prayers of the saints.” They are like the leaders of the tribes in Numbers 7, each of whom brings, among other things, “one…

September 18, 2014

Judaism and Apocalypse

Paul gives a brief summary of his advancement in Judaism in Galatians 1:13-14, but the description is surrounded by references to an unveiling of Jesus: A. The gospel came not from man, 11-12a B. but by revelation ( apokalupsis ) of Jesus, 12b B. Former life in Judaism, 13a C.…

September 18, 2014

Wrestling the Angel

Terryl Givens’s forthcoming Wrestling the Angel is the first of a two-volume study of the foundations of Mormon theology and practice. Givens admits that Mormonism, for all its roots in Christian Scriptures, diverges “radically” from traditional Christianity, and he locates the difference in “a distinctive cosmology and metaphysics” which is…

September 18, 2014

In Praise of Darwin

Born into a pious Scottish family living in Canada in 1848, George Romanes might have been destined for ministry in the Church of Scotland. Reading Darwin upended his plans, and his early adulthood was marked by public disputes about science and faith, Romanes taking up the case for Darwin and…

September 18, 2014

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