Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Study in Biblical and Practical Theology Sunday School Notes / Epiphany 2004 Introductory Note: January 6 is Epiphany in the traditional church calendar. Though Epiphany is often treated as a single day, with the Sundays following counted as “Sundays after Epiphany,” we will treat Epiphany as an extended season.…
Imagine someone from another world trying to learn to live in our society according to our customs. What if someone gave him a check for a hundred dollars for his birthday–the first check he had ever seen in his life? Would he immediately understand how a check was used? Perhaps…
According to Presbyterian doctrine, as articulated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, baptism is a baptized person’s “admission… into the visible church.” By referring to the “visible church,” the document makes clear it is referring to the present institutional Church with all her imperfections, as opposed to the future Church…
N. T. Wright claims that in the Apostle Paul’s writings “righteousness,” as it predicated of humans, denotes “covenant membership.” When he wrote this in the New Bible Dictionary edited by Sinclair Ferguson, J. I. Packer, and David Wright, no one thought this was too big a deal. However, when he…
It seems almost human nature to think that we can find something to do for God that will make Him do us favors. If we live more virtuously, or cut down on a vice or two, then God will have to reward us. But the problem with this notion is…
The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. The First Commandment reads (I’m using NASB throughout): “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Obviously, trusting in someone or something else (even one’s own good works) for justification, sanctification, and eternal life”…
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Isaiah 53 has often been read as a text dealing mainly with “atonement theory.” That is, it is a text that explains the mechanics of how the atonement dealt with sin. That is certainly part of what we’ll find, but the text itself is really more a prediction of the…
Leonard Vander Zee ( Christ, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper ) shows some chutzpah in addressing the question of Eucharistic sacrifice, and in suggesting that there are senses in which the Eucharist is properly said to be sacrificial. He offers a few quotations to show the Reformation pedigree of this…
A 1982 debate between architects Christopher Alexander and Peter Einsenman focused on contrasting cosmologies expressed by traditional versus modernist architecture. At one point, the exchanged focused specifically on the pitched roof. Alexander, advocating an architecture of comfort, harmony, and feeling, claimed that “the pitched roof contains a very, very primitive…
Following hints from David Aune, Alastair Campbell argues (in an Evangelical Quarterly article) that Revelation 19:11-21 does not describe a last battle but a triumphal parade modeled on a Roman Triumph. He quotes the following description of such an event: “The victorious general whom the senate had granted the right…
William Dumbrell's The End of the Beginning examines the Old Testament backgrounds to the final visions of Revelation, chapters 21-22. He looks at those chapters through various lenses - new Jerusalem, new temple, new covenant, new Israel, new creation. Reviewing Ezekiel's vision of restoration, he points to the obvious, that…
In the ancient world, Aries was, Bruce Malina observes, “the first of all constellations, the first created celestial body marking the inauguration of the cosmos” ( The New Jerusalem in the Revelation of John , 67). He cites Cicero in support: “When the vault of the sky returns to the…
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