Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I appreciate Andy Webb’s recent entry into the current discussion over baptismal efficacy. 1 This is an issue which has consumed a great deal of time and energy in the Reformed world in recent years. It is not likely to subside soon. As a contributing party to the discussion, I…
The Covenant Vision of the Heidelberg & Westminster Catechisms Regarding Children and Baptism 7 POINTS ABOUT THE TEACHING OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death? Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but…
Is the Holiday Unpresbyterian? ‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others 1 ) claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to…
This month we begin by considering Alan D. Strange’s article, “Understanding the ‘Federal Vision'” published in the February 2007 issue of New Horizons, the official denominational magazine of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Mr. Strange is an OPC minister, a teacher at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and was a member of the…
There is no reason to believe that Matthew 24, Mark 13, or Luke 21 records Jesus prophesying about what is now known in Christian theology as “the Second Coming.” In my opinion, the fact that most modern conservative Christian scholars and pastors are not yet willing to acknowledge that the…
Francis Turretin, the Reformed theologian of the seventeenth century, carefully distinguishes the Reformed view of infant faith from Lutheran and Anabaptist claims. Anabaptists denied any faith to infants so that they could justify their refusal to baptize them. Lutherans affirmed (rightly) that covenant infants were believers, but made no distinction…
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William Dembski's latest, Being As Communion , sets out a metaphysics of information, and argues for what he calls “informational realism.” Reality is information all the way down, but that information is real. It is reality. What is information? Dembski says it's “about realizing possibilities by ruling out others. Unless…
John's account of the resurrection fulfills the promise of his prologue (John 20). Here is the Word made flesh, dead and buried, now risen as new Adam, the “gardener,” with Mary Magdalene, a type of the new Eve. The Word who spoke the worlds into being speaks also after death,…
Elijah's life (1 Kings 17-19) tracks that of Moses. He confronts the Pharaoh-like King Ahab, then flees from the land, as Moses fled to Midian, where he is cared for by a widow. God provides miraculously for the prophet and his host, but then her child dies. In the Moses…
Paul Griffiths's Decreation has some harrowing passages about sin. Like this one: “What will be left of me when I am no longer a sinner? That is a question fundamental to trembling before hell's presence in the devastation [i.e., the fallen world]. Such trembling, however, like all well-formed Christian responses,…
A wondrous passage from Donne: “all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by…
Thomas considers acedia, “sloth,” as the opposite of delight. It is “sadness directed toward what ought to yield delight” (summary by Paul Griffiths, Decreation , 196). Paul Griffiths glosses: Acedia “is the mark of those sufficiently habituated to looking at nothing that when they look at something—and most especially at…
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