Tag Archives: doctrine

What Was Not Said: A Prolegomenon to Reading Absence in Theological Controversy

§1. The Problem of the Settled Verdict 1.1 Two ways a field closes A field can close in two ways, and from the outside they look the same. It can be exhausted: every question worth asking has been asked, the … Continue reading

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Paper 6: The New Covenant and the Limits of Church Discipline

Abstract The previous papers established the limits on the believer reaching backward into Israel’s civil law. This paper addresses the structure that actually governs the new-covenant community, and shows that it is no avenue for the penal action the live … Continue reading

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Touch Not Mine Anointed: Anatomy of a Misused Text

Abstract This paper offers a case study in how a single verse becomes a shield for authority, demonstrating by close exegesis the difference between faithful interpretation and self-protection. The text is the divine word recorded in Psalm 105:15 and 1 … Continue reading

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The Whole Counsel on Obedience: What a Balanced Account of Biblical Authority Requires

Abstract This paper, which opens the second suite, argues that a fair and biblically faithful account of authority must present the texts commanding obedience together with their qualifications and their reciprocal duties, rather than isolating the command, and that an … Continue reading

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Paper 3 — Leviticus 23 and the Book of Ruth: The Harvest Romance and Its Meaning

Third in the suite “Pentecost in the Bible: A Feast Read at Many Depths” Thesis If Pentecost is at bottom a harvest feast, then the book of Ruth is its narrative commentary. The first two papers established the calendar and … Continue reading

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Paper 2 — Levels of Interpretation: What Actually Happened on Pentecost

Second in the suite “Pentecost in the Bible: A Feast Read at Many Depths” Thesis Pentecost carries several meanings at once, and the meanings reinforce rather than compete with one another. A reader pressed to say what the feast is … Continue reading

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Paper 2: Submission Without Inferiority: A Doctrinal Argument That Biblical Submission Is Relational and Vocational, Not a Verdict on Worth

Thesis Biblical submission is the willing placement of oneself under a rightful authority for the sake of an ordered relation or vocation, and it never functions in Scripture as a measure of personal worth. Worth is grounded in being made … Continue reading

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When Position Papers Fail to Persuade: Rhetorical Closure, Institutional Authority, and the Discipline of Doubtful Disputations

Introduction A recurring pattern is visible in the doctrinal communications of religious bodies: an institution releases a paper defending a particular position on a contested matter, and the paper does not actually engage the arguments that produced the dispute in … Continue reading

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White Paper 7 Alignment Framework: Language, Structure, and Practice

1. Framing the Problem The previous six papers of this suite have addressed, in turn, the conceptual baseline of metaphor and corporate structure, the New Testament patterns of authority, the rhetoric of warning and rebellion, the specific drift of family-business … Continue reading

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Toward a Faithful Fragmentology: Synthesis and Recommendations

Introduction The eight papers preceding this one have moved from foundations to method, from method to specific corpora, and from those corpora to the practical chain by which fragmentary evidence reaches the church. The work has been cumulative. Each paper … Continue reading

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