Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the Bible, a memorial is something that brings God's promises and previous actions to mind, so that He can do them again. The rainbow is the model, set in heaven so that Yahweh remembers the covenant He makes with Noah (Genesis 9:13-15). God is light and dwells in a…
The First Epistle to Timothy fits neatly in the context of what King Jesus and the church are doing in the gospels, in Acts, Revelation, and all of the Apostolic Age in between. Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him in his work as a pastor in the “latter days,”…
I have been pastoring Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, Illinois since 1999. We are members of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), but have been practicing catholicity for many years, both personally and corporately. I’ve always believed that the Church of Jesus Christ is much more than the local…
Ecumenism is easy to talk about. It’s doing something to promote it that’s the problem. As a pastor in a town with churches of different denominations, all of whom love their doctrinal distinctions and are jealous to defend them whenever they perceive the slightest challenge, how can you be ecumenical…
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INTRODUCTION John frequently exhorts his readers to love one another (2:10; 3:10, 11, 23), and speaks of God’s love for us (3:1). Here, he connects these two loves inseparably. The noun or verb “love” is used 27 times (3 x 3 x 3) in this chapter, and twice he addresses…
Nothing seems as anti-gnostic as the contemporary obsession with bodily perfection. We can remold our bodies in any way we want - tuck in here, enhance there, replant hair and remold biceps, remove wrinkles and signs of aging. In fact, this obsession is completely gnostic. It attempts to side-step the…
1 John 4:2: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Why do we have this meal? The simple answer is that Jesus commanded it. But why did He command it? After all, aren’t we in the New Covenant, which is a Spiritual…
Yesterday, January 6, was Epiphany, the beginning of one of the traditional seasons of the church year. The word “epiphany” means “manifestation” or “revelation.” Advent celebrates the coming of the Lord; Epiphany, His revelation. We need both. If God comes to us, but remains veiled and incognito, we will never…
In a 1980 essay, Richard Rorty offers a quick overview of the development of European thought from idealism through romanticism and pragmatism to what he calls textualism. The two ends of this development, idealism and textualism, are similar in various ways: both are antagonistic toward science, both claim that we…
Lubac is by all accounts one of the great Catholic theologians of the past century, and one of the most influential. He never worked on a dissertation, and because of the disruptions of war never went through a great deal of the formal training expected of Jesuits. He was eventually…
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