Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Book Review The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation & Evangelism by Norman Shepherd The Call of Grace is an excellent manual to put in the hands of laymen to teach them how to rest in God’s grace while taking seriously the prize of the upward call of…
My Role as a Parent in My Children’s Salvation Evangeline Jael Horne is our third child. My two boys were born while we were at seminary and we had the privilege of giving them to Jeff Meyers, our pastor at that time, for baptism. When Evangeline was born, however, I…
John Calvin writes in the Institutes about the possibility of admitting children to the Lord’s Supper by virtue of their baptism once and only once: At length they object, that there is not greater reason for admitting infants to baptism than to the Lord’s Supper, to which, however, they are…
The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…
Lots of conservative Protestants want to answer “no” to this question. The problem with this position is that conservative Protestants are bound to believe what the Bible teaches. And the Bible says inconvenient things, like “baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3.21), or “all of you who were baptized into…
This paper is something of a follow-up to my earlier study, “ Baptismal Efficacy and the Reformed Tradition: Past, Present, and Future .” One of the more controversial aspects of that paper was my claim that Calvin held to a very high view of baptismal efficacy. Indeed, he was a…
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Is the covenant between God and His people more or less strictly legal, a contractual relationship of Lord to servant? Or does it describe an ordered relationship of filial love, a relationship of Father and Son? The parable of the “prodigal son” sheds some light. Brendan Byrne points out that…
Would Adam have been admitted to eat from the tree of knowledge if he had kept the probation in the garden? Jim Jordan has argued from hints in Genesis 1-3 that the answer is Yes. Perhaps there’s also some further hint in Matthew 4:1-11. Jesus goes into the wilderness, and…
?Then Elijah said to them, ?Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.?ESo they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. Now Elijah said to Ahab, ?Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of a…
We are in the second week of the traditional season of Lent. Lent covers the forty days prior to Easter, and is a fast in preparation for the feast of the resurrection. In some of the earliest churches, baptismal candidates prepared during these forty days for their baptism at Easter.…
INTRODUCTION In Jesus?Eparables, the evangelistic invitation is often an invitation to a feast, a royal banquet (?the kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding feast . . . .?E. Christian liturgy is an enactment of that invitation and our response to it. In the call to…
Merold Westphal offers this helpful definition of “onto-theology” in an article found here : “The term is often used by assistant professors who have appointed themselves campus terrorists and, alas, by senior scholars who should be more careful, as a kind of sci-fi conceptual zapper. You aim it at any…
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