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

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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
extreme-unction
Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
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American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Abraham the Rock

Abraham is a rock (Isaiah 51). What does that mean? He’s a chip off the Rock of Israel, Yahweh himself. No matter how much you water them, rocks don’t grow into rock gardens, but Abraham becomes a garden because He is blessed by the Lord. Abraham the rock grows to…

March 7, 2013

Full of fury

At the end of Isaiah 51, the prophet uses the image of the cup of wrath (cf. Psalm 75; Jeremiah 25; Revelation 18). Jerusalem has drunk so much that she has been asleep; she stumbles around without anyone to help her (v. 18). No one can help because all her…

March 7, 2013

Four by Four Equals Six

Isaiah 3 promises “comfort” for barren, bereft mother Zion. Comfort isn’t just soothing pain, but a change of condition. Yahweh brings comfort because He brings justice, establishing righteousness. The comfort is spelled out in a lovely list: From her wilderness as Eden From the Arabah as the garden of God…

March 7, 2013

Hewn from the Rock

Isaiah tells the people of Judah to look to the “rock from which you were hewn, and to the cistern from which you were dug” (Isaiah 51:1). The next verse makes it clear that he is talking about Abraham and Sarah. Abraham the father is the rock; mother Sarah is…

March 7, 2013

Uti and Frui

In his recent Theology of Augustine: An Introductory Guide to His Most Important Works (6-7), Matthew Levering offers this summary of Augustine’s distinction between use and enjoyment, uti and frui : “In loving our neighbors and ourselves, we should do nothing that is not also fully and truly love of…

March 7, 2013

Shared Glory

When he turned proud and boasted in the “power and glory of my majesty” (Daniel 4:30), Nebuchadnezzar was “driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle” (v. 33). Boasting in glory diminished his glory. He later came to his senses, and coming to his senses meant confessing that…

March 7, 2013

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