Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Where do we go from here? Depending on one’s perspective, the American story can plausibly be interpreted in different ways. Looked at from past to present , we can see a great deal of continuity from medieval Christendom and the Reformation to America’s founding. The War for Independence, after all,…
Click HERE for Part 1 Civic Religion: American or Christian? We have already traced out the basic contours of the shift in America from an ecclesiocentric, theocratic social order to a secular one. Building on Locke and Hobbes, the Enlightenment accomplished an astonishing coup of Christendom. That victory for the…
Author’s Introductory Note: Engaging in broad historical interpretation as I am about to do is always risky. Necessarily, one “stylizes” history by simplifying, over generalizing, and stereotyping. But the narrative qualities of history are not simply due to the imposition of human rationality upon brute facts; rather history is always…
A. Repentance to life involves endeavoring to believe real hard that you’re saved. reject infant baptism. stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. B. What is necessary so that no sinner may expect to be forgiven unless he does it? Only…
The machine works mechanically and it is flawless. Slander/libel a group of Presbyterian ministers as “Romanist” because robes and James 2 are no worse than praying to Mary or relying on purgatory to pay for unconfessed sins. Drive off anyone who disagrees. Of that number, there may be a tiny…
If we take as a starting point the Tribal / Monarchical / Empire model, we can then add to it the Late Empire Phase. The particular ‘marker sin’ of Empire is false intermarriage, which signifies pluralism and syncretism. Empires by definition are “cosmopolitan” dominated by cities, high culture, many cultures,…
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Isaiah 57 begins with a chiastically arranged fragment of wisdom literature. Verse 1 begins and ends with “righteous one” ( tzaddiyq ): A. The righteous man perishes B. there is not a man there of heart C. men of loyalty taken away B’. there is not consideration A’. for from…
Ralph Smith continues his series of studies in Deuteronomy at the Trinity House site.
Creation is threefold: Heaven, earth, sea. Alternatively, creation is sixfold, because each zone has things in it: Heaven and things, earth and things, sea and things (Revelation 10:6). A nice symmetry: The sixfold creation was formed over six days. At the origin and end of the sixfold creation, there has…
For seven periods of time, Nebuchadnezzar lived like a beast, eating grass, his hair growing like wings (Daniel 4:28-33). Then he became human again. Like an Enlightenment philosopher, Daniel describes this as a restoration of “reason,” that most distinctive human trait. Twice, the king declares, “my reason (Ar. manda ‘)…
NT Wright has sparked controversy for saying that Jesus announces the kingdom as the end of exile. It’s hardly a new thought. In his discussion of the “particular and general” in his Tyconius: The Book of Rules , Tyconius observes an alternating movement in the prophets. Prophets speak of the…
Exodus says that Israel was in Egypt 430 years, Genesis says 400. Can we just round them off to make them coincide? Tyconius ( The Book of Rules ) isn’t satisfied with that. Perhaps, he suggests, “they were not in slaver for the whole time? We need to find out,…
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