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Writing

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

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Apostasy

Regeneration and Lettuce

My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…

by Garry VanderveenJuly 31, 2014
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Eucharist

Jesus Eats First

At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…

by Burke ShadeJuly 28, 2014
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Theopolis News

Church of the Present, Pastors of the Future

We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…

by Peter LeithartJuly 23, 2014
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Exodus

Mutilated Bodies

Sandra Jacobs's ​The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…

by Peter LeithartJuly 23, 2014
Isaiah

Saving Judah

Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…

by Peter LeithartJuly 21, 2014
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Apostasy

Apostasy and Assurance

Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…

by Steve WilkinsJuly 16, 2014

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History

Essence of history

Rosenzweig ( Judaism Despite Christianity: The 1916 Wartime Correspondence Between Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig , 157) offers this profound rejoinder to the professorial habit of trying to modify the traditional epochs of history: “It is necessary . . . to accept the traditional periods, and to avoid wanting to…

January 16, 2014

One Flesh

Rosenzweig ( Judaism Despite Christianity: The 1916 Wartime Correspondence Between Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig , 115) says that “Only what belongs to both man and woman belongs to all men, and everything else has only sectional interest.” Rosenstock agrees, and elaborates: “The lawyer is the perfect type of male…

January 16, 2014
History

Maimed Emancipation

In one of his wartime letters to Franz Rosenzweig (the correspondence published as Judaism Despite Christianity: The 1916 Wartime Correspondence Between Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig ), Rosenstock challenges the Rosenzweig’s idea that his love for a particular scholar can be a “merely private affair.” Love above all “can’t remain…

January 16, 2014

Newspaper of Record

Rebecca Rosen reports at the Atlantic on a century-long error on the front page of the New York Times. The issue number for the February 6, 1898 edition was 14,499; the next day, the issue number was 15,000. Nobody noticed until 1999. At the beginning of 2000, the newspaper announced…

January 16, 2014
Philosophy

Giving Descartes his Due

In Desire, Dialectic, and Otherness: An Essay on Origins , recently reprinted by Wipf & Stock, William Desmond concedes that “the modern self has been excessively subjectivized” (45). But he thinks that, for all its faults, Cartesianism focused attention on an inescapable philosophical problem: “The Cartesian view has the merit…

January 16, 2014

Bridal land

At the end of Isaiah 61, the prophet (or Zion) rejoices because Yahweh “has clothed me with garments of salvation, and has wrapped me in a robe of righteousness.” The clothing is festal, clothing for a wedding, and Zion is both the garlanded bridegroom and the jeweled bride (v. 10).…

January 16, 2014

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