Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
OUR REFORMED HERITAGE When a Reformed Christian hears “baptismal regeneration,” what comes to mind? “Heresy,” most likely. Unfortunately, many in the Reformed community today have lost touch with some important aspects of their own heritage. If Reformed theology is going to continue reforming according to Scripture, we must recover the…
Faith and assurance are recurring subjects of controversy in Evangelical circles. We all agree that we are saved by the righteousness of Christ reckoned to us, which we receive through faith alone. Jesus lived and died and rose again as the representative of his people so that all of them…
What’s at stake (or not!) for Reformed Pastors regarding the contemporary discussion of Paul and “the works of the law”? There has been a great deal of talk lately about “the New Perspective on Paul” and the works of, among others, Ed Sanders, James Dunn, and N. T. Wright. Each…
When Christ enjoins upon the young man the duty of following him (Mt. 19:23), he does not give a counsel, but a command to all in common because no one can have a hope of salvation unless he follows Christ (2 Pet. 2:21), although from a particular cause it is…
This short paper is not an attempt to provide a comprehensive analysis and defense of N. T. Wright, much less the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” as a whole. Indeed, Wright’s theological project has some failings and the New Perspective as a movement must be considered a mixed bag of…
Leviticus 1:3-13, Translation 3 If his Nearbringing is an Ascension from the herd, a perfect male shall he bring him near. To the forecourt of the Tent of Meeting he shall bring him near, for his acceptance before Yahweh. 4 And he shall lean his hand on the head of…
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Laurence Moore's Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans is a study of American religion that is not considered “mainstream” or “mainline”—Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Christian Science, Fundamentalists, Black churches. The goal is not to fill in a gap. The goal is to challenge the assumption that the “mainline” should function…
After John introduces the new scene – “I saw another sign in the heaven, great and marvelous” – the sign is described with two clauses (Revelation 15:1). The first is, woodenly translated, “angels seven having plagues seven the last”; and the second it “in them finished the passion of God.”…
Both Old and New Testaments, writes David Martin ( Pentecostalism , 12) include principles that “by persistent extension and deepening . . . can divest systems of authority of their justification and turn law into a matter of inward judgement and sincerity rather than external observance.” “Rend your heart and…
Greek myths valorize blindness. Tiresias is a blind seer, and when Oedipus finally “sees,” he becomes Tiresias, digging out his eyes with Jocasta's brooches. The bard who sings of the Trojan War in the Odyssey is, like Homer himself, blind. For the Greeks, the sightless are the true seers. Scripture…
The saints playing harps and singing on the fiery firmament are there because they are victorious over three enemies: the beast, the image of the beast, and the number of the beast's name (Revelation 15:2). When we look back at how those three are presented earlier in Revelation, we realize…
Girard's theory of scapegoating as the great virtue of explaining how the death of Jesus can remake human society. By refusing to acknowledge sin, Jesus becomes the innocent scapegoat, and thereby exposes the scapegoat mechanism for what it is. That exposure is the good news, and undoes the perverse dynamics…
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