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Writing

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

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Culture

Consumerism, Oikos, and the Role of Women in the Church

Part 1 We do not understand the role of women in ministry because we do not understand the role of men in ministry. We do not understand the role of men in ministry because we do not understand the church. We do not understand the church because the consumer culture…

by John CarpenterJuly 11, 2023
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Biblical Theology

Genesis’ Beginning Story

1. One structure The Creation account (G1:1-2:4) conspicuously conveys meaning using the literary shape of the text. The narrative is told with formulaic patterns, repetitions, and parallelism. The Garden account is different. It is viewed as a separate text, with its own author, employing its own structure. This second account’s…

by Scott FairbanksJune 28, 2023
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Baptism

Crystalline Baptism

I was reading James Jordan’s Creation in Six Days while also preparing for Trinity Sunday in which the gospel reading is John 3:1-15. As providence would have it Jordan dropped an easter egg for me along the lines of baptism. In chapter 5 he points out, “ On the second…

by Matthew CoreyJune 20, 2023
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Baptism

Christians Should Baptize Their Children, but Not Because of Circumcision

It's true. There is no verse in the New Testament that commands or records an infant baptism. This poses a problem for some Christians. Those who only look for explicit commands, or those whose theology is limited to the New Testament, will conclude that infant baptism is not biblical and…

by Adam McIntoshJune 13, 2023
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Biblical Studies

Polarities

1. Goal This paper’s goal is to identify and describe a literary strategy employed by scripture, namely using two episodes that cover similar territory or themes using details drawn from opposite ends of a number of spectrums. Once described the reader may recognize numerous other instances of this strategy in…

by Scott FairbanksJune 7, 2023
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Deuteronomy

Kind Capital Punishment

Numbers 14 records the tragic story of Israel’s decision to rebel against Yahweh and Moses. Twelve spies had been sent into the land to bring back a report to Israel. All twelve spies agreed: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey”…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 31, 2023

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Entrepreneurial State

Mariana Mazzucato argues in The Entrepreneurial State that government financing and research has been crucial to the technology booms of recent decades. Jeff Madrick summarizes part of her argument in his NYRB review : “private firms often invest after innovations have already come a long way under government’s much more…

April 9, 2014

Yahweh among the Gods

Shayne Cohen notes in his Beginnings of Jewishness that “many gentiles in antiquity recognized that the God of the Jews was a powerful God” (142). He cites the magical papyri that “routinely invoke the ‘God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ ‘Iao Sabaoth,’” as well as “a disciple of the orator…

April 9, 2014

Deuteronomy among the Greeks

In a 1978 article on funeral maledictions among Greeks, Louis Robert records a curse from an inscription. Various sources have been suggested, but Robert concludes that the malediction is a word for word translation of Deuteronomy 28:22, 28. He quotes one scholar’s conclusion that an inscription that quotes Deuteronomy alongside…

April 9, 2014

Jewish Sublime

“Longinus” describes the sublime as “the echo of a great soul” ( de Sublimitate , 9.2)). The sublime can be expressed in silence or in speech, and it can be found the terrible, awe-inspiring acts of the gods. But Longinus worries that Homeric accounts of the gods “if they be…

April 9, 2014
Shakespeare

Shakespeare the Christian?

The first of several of essays on Shakespeare is up at the Colson Center Worldview Journal this morning.

April 9, 2014

Pillar in the Temple

Jesus promises to make the overcomers in Philadelphia “pillars in the temple of My God” (Revelation 3:12). Yahweh was the original pillar. He led Israel to Sinai in a pillar of cloud, and then His cloudy pillar filled the tabernacle. Yahweh is the pillar in His own house, the load-bearing…

April 8, 2014

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