True Magic

True Magic

Home
Podcast
Notes
Join on Signal
Reading list
About

Essays

The calling of Nathanael and the symbolism of trees and high places
How did Jesus see Nathanael beneath the fig tree? Why does Nathanael respond with an amazed confession of who Jesus is? And how will his seeing angels…
 • Bnonn Tennant
Vindicating Gideon
Though Gideon seems to execute the kings of Midian out of personal vengeance, scripture’s holographic hermeneutic reveals him to be in the right.
 • Bnonn Tennant
What is going on with David and Abishag?
Smokey expressed perplexion today over this passage:
 • Bnonn Tennant
Against the literal-grammatical-historical method
An example from Judges 3 of how reading the Bible like a textbook turns many of its elements into meaningless noise.
 • Bnonn Tennant
Clearly correcting Catholic confusion
If scripture teaches us how to think, as well as what to think, then it should shape our minds to better judge its own place in the hierarchy of knowing…
 • Bnonn Tennant
Re-enchantment is not about restoring a paranormal worldview
It is about re-learning the art of biblical meaning-making: applying biblical hermeneutics to discern and integrate the meaning in all things.
 • Bnonn Tennant
Knowledge as integration into Christ
Toward a sacramental doctrine of knowledge.
 • Bnonn Tennant
Death and sacrifice before the fall
The pattern of giving something up to a higher thing is found in everything from seeds to offerings.
 • Bnonn Tennant
Impressing heavenly patterns into time
Refusing to celebrate holidays like Christmas is a functional denial of Christ’s lordship over time, of the church’s right to establish his rule in the…
 • Bnonn Tennant
The symbolic incoherence of transubstantiation
Scriptural sacramentalism puts the spiritual before and above the physical. Transubstantiation does the opposite.
 • Bnonn Tennant
Masculine & feminine symbolize creator & creation: a response to Matt Damico’s critique of It’s Good To Be A Man
Scripture depicts masculine and feminine as patterns, expressed in distinctions like creator/creature and male/female. Thus the connection in Romans 1…
 • Bnonn Tennant
The Christian heuristic for easily predicting unforeseeable harms
Why ugly things are likely to be bad things.
 • Bnonn Tennant and Smokey Tennant
© 2026 D. Bnonn Tennant · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture