Category: Theology
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“The Intelligence Can Only be Led by Desire.” (Simone Weil)
I love to argue with Simone Weil (1909-1943)’s essay “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.” Then again, I love to argue with Simone Weil. Her writings always have something in them that catches me and lures me in –but then I find that I can’t…
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Erasmus Milks Ephesians
Erasmus of Rotterdam taught the Renaissance world how to take a thought and expand it, expound it, extrapolate it into a fountain of new expressions and novel turns of phrase. His “abundant style” bore much fruit for the students who learned it from him. But the most fruitful use to which Erasmus himself put his powers…
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9 Papers on Locating Atonement for Los Angeles Theology Conference 2015
Locating Atonement, the 2015 Los Angeles Theology Conference, will be held January 15-16 on the campus of Biola University. Convinced that “theories and models” is a tired way of talking about the theology of the atonement, a trope with some limited pedagogical usefulness but not much prospect, we have designed LATC 2015 to do something…
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Well To Start With, Your Last Theologian Was A Idiot
I’ve spent a little time this summer with contractors and plumbers and concrete guys and appliance repairmen, and by “I’ve spent time with” I mean “I’ve been paying.” Like most things that aren’t theology, it has reminded me of theology. There’s a dynamic that occurs whenever you bring in a repairman: He takes a look…
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The Common Room: What did John Wesley Make of 1 John?
The Common Room: Dr. Matt Jenson and Dr. Fred Sanders discuss the topic, “What did John Wesley Make of 1 John?” Watch the video here:
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The Suffering of the Christ in the Psalms
As soon as Jesus had confirmed to his disciples that he was “the Christ, the son of the living God,” he went on to tell them that it was necessary that he would suffer and die at the hands of the leaders of his people (Mat 16:16, 21). Peter was taken aback, and his disciples…
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Remembering Chris Mitchell
On Thursday night, my dear friend Chris died of a heart attack. We in the Torrey Honors Institute were—are—in complete shock. There were no warning signs, nothing indicating that his health was in decline. (An undetected heart disease proved to be the cause.) Chris and his wife Julie had moved to LA only a year…
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Leaf By Niggle: A Recommendation
Beauty, Eucatastrophe, and the Doctrine of Grace in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Leaf By Niggle In September 1944, J. R. R. Tolkien received a request from The Dublin Review for a story that would be “an effective expression of Catholic humanity.” In response, he sent Leaf By Niggle, a short story he had written a year or…
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I Believe in the Communion of (Global) Saints: Writing World Christianity
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to…
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Loving Life Under the Sun
“Vanity, all is vanity” is the theme of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, the fruit of wide experience and deep reflection. Pleasure, folly, great projects, householding, riches, opulence, art, sex, honor, public works, all fall under the same verdict: there is nothing to be gained under the sun. By all means, take what joy in your…
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Thanks for the Ephesians
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; ~Ephesians 1:15, 16 Because the Ephesian believers were “in Christ” and were “sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise,” and because of…
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Theses on the Revelation of the Trinity
As I’ve been working on a large writing project on the doctrine of the Trinity (The Triune God in Zondervan’s New Studies in Dogmatics series), one of the things that has increasingly called for attention is the peculiarity of the way this doctrine was revealed. It’s simply not like other doctrines. I think the doctrine…