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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones

[This essay was originally published in 1988. Given the situation that our new national socialists are getting the world into, I thought it might be useful to reprint it here. – JBJordan] The Bible has quite a bit to say about gold, silver, and precious stones, and the Bible always…

by James B. JordanMay 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

The Pastoral Function

I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it. There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a…

by James B. JordanMay 17, 2009
Biblical Horizons

The Virgin Tomb: The Womb of the New Birth

James Jordan recently pointed out in private conversation how appropriate it is, in John’s Gospel, that Nicodemus is present both to ask Jesus about being born again, and to see Jesus re-enter the womb of the mother. Nicodemus rhetorically asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?…

by Mark HorneMay 8, 2009
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Romans

Romans 7

This is a problematic and much discussed passage. I’ve been discussing it in another forum, and have decided to move it here and present some very preliminary observations about it. One large question is this: Who is the speaker here and what is his situation? Traditionally, the speaker is seen…

by James B. JordanApril 19, 2009
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Biblical Horizons

Good New Sci-Fi

1. The current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes a good fantasy novella by John C. Wright, who since his conversion has been writing Christianly. This is a fine fantasy with nods to C. S. Lewis and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and probably Gene Wolfe as well.…

by James B. JordanApril 15, 2009
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American Culture

The Name of Jesus

“It is an experience of our days that the spoken name of Jesus alone exercises an unforeseen power; and the effort which it cost to speak this name is perhaps connected to some faint apprehension of the power which is inherent within it. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 20, 2009

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Parodic Trinity

In his The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation , David Chilton suggests that the dragon and two beasts of Revelation 12-13 constitute a demonic parody of of a modified Trinity. The Father is imaged by the dragon, the Son by the sea beast, and the…

April 23, 2013

Man in nature

Near the beginning of his The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science , EA Burtt contrasts medieval with modern science. The difference is mainly to do with their different assessments of the place of man in nature. For medieval thinkers nature was “subservient to man’s knowledge, purpose, and destiny” (24). This…

April 23, 2013
Science

Idolatry of Newton

In his A defence of free-thinking in mathematics. In answer to a pamphlet of Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, intituled, Geometry no friend to infidelity , George Berkeley challenges what he considers the idolatry of Isaac Newton that he finds in some of his contemporaries. He admires Newton’s genius, but refuses to bow.…

April 23, 2013

Early Christian Unity

Ephraim Radner points out in A Brutal Unity: The Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church that early Christian discussions of unity “were often framed precisely in terms of the activities that marked a common life together” (171). Radner elaborates: “So Basil will speak of unity in terms of mutual correction…

April 22, 2013

Passing ships

Owen ( The Death of Death in the Death of Christ ) spends a chapter rebutting the claims of Thomas More’s The Universality of God’s Free Grace . The response engages More at times, but frequently the two are simply moving past one another. More writes, “it is certainly a…

April 22, 2013

Denying the Lord who Bought

Owen ( The Death of Death in the Death of Christ ) also responds to the use of 2 Peter 2:1 as a text in favor of universal atonement. Peter writes of false teachers who “deny the Lord who bought them.” This seems straightforward enough, but Owen sees only obscurities:…

April 22, 2013

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