Latest Posts
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Life is not a Competition
Read more: Life is not a CompetitionIt has been said that we must perform at a certain velocity to achieve worth, success, and security. Many things have been promised to our generation, but it seems that only a select few have achieved them. We hold these success stories up as a championing call to work harder, be better, and to not…
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How Doctrine Makes Service Minded Saints
Read more: How Doctrine Makes Service Minded SaintsAs I’ve shared on The Two Cities before I have been incredibly impacted by passages like Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man [who’s]… delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night… In all that he does he prospers.” This passage has incredibly impacted how I do…
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P.O.D.’s New Album, The Awakening, is the Worst Album of my Life
Read more: P.O.D.’s New Album, The Awakening, is the Worst Album of my LifeJust the other week I was walking around St Andrews and I bumped into a pastor friend here in town. We stopped to chat for a minute and he asked me what I think of P.O.D.’s new album. WHAT?! There’s a new album?? is what immediately went through my head. And so I ran back…
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Starting A New Chapter
Read more: Starting A New ChapterWorking on a college campus, I can feel the anticipation of the new semester in the air, as classes just started last week. There are more students around exploring the campus and trying to register for classes. You can tell who are the new freshmen with the quizzical looks as they try to figure out…
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How Calvin helped me read the Bible
Read more: How Calvin helped me read the BibleThis fall I started rereading Calvin’s Institutes, which may be my favorite book. When I first seriously engaged with Calvin it was the most theologically formative book I had read (that may still be the case). Once while I was in a conversation with a Ladder Day Saint I quoted Calvin and was then asked…
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The Hayne Plane Is Taking Off
Read more: The Hayne Plane Is Taking OffToday is August 25th and that means that I am exactly one month away from submitting my PhD thesis. It’s a crazy feeling to be so close to finishing. It’s an even crazier feeling to consider all the work that I still want to do before I submit the thing! A friend recently told me…
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A Call to Pray for Brandon Barr
Read more: A Call to Pray for Brandon BarrWe received some very difficult news this week that Brandon Barr, a contributor to the The Two Cities, has been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Brandon has been a close friend of mine since childhood, and so the news of his illness comes as quite a blow. Brandon is 34 years old, and is married…
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Review of The Jesus Movement and Its Expansion: Meaning and Mission by Seán Freyne
Read more: Review of The Jesus Movement and Its Expansion: Meaning and Mission by Seán FreyneSeán Freyne. The Jesus Movement and Its Expansion: Meaning and Mission. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. xii + 383 pp. Paperback. $35.00. ISBN: 9780802867865. The Jesus Movement and Its Expansion is the final work by the late Seán Freyne, who at the time of his death was Emeritus Professor of Theology at Trinity College, Dublin. Freyne…
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Can You Critique The Church?
Read more: Can You Critique The Church?I was reading Josh Carroll’s post about the disease called “Critiqueomania” and I found that I myself have had rather severe bouts of this plague. Some of these outbreaks have been part of my former angst, but others seemed very well meant. Some were definitely “Critiqueomania,” but there were other times where my criticism was well…
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Review of Apocalypse against Empire by Anathea E. Portier-Young
Read more: Review of Apocalypse against Empire by Anathea E. Portier-YoungAnathea E. Portier-Young. Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism. Eerdmans, 2014. 462 pgs. $35 (Paperback). ISBN 978-0-8028-7083-4. Anathea E. Portier-Young’s Apocalypse against Empire (originally release in 2011) comprises, to quote John Collins from the book’s foreword, “an important contribution to the study of Judea under Seleucid rule and to the social context…