Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Your first born is a novelty. Everything seems special and unique. No one’s child is like yours. Then, over time, you begin to make mistakes. Some strategies don’t work on the additional personalities born into your family, or they simply don’t scale from a practical perspective. With maturity, you realize…
Could Jesus have sinned? Before answering the question, it's best to run through a couple of qualifiers. First, scripture clearly teaches He did not sin. Second, I realize the seeming futility when discussing hypothetical situations. The question of the peccability of Jesus, or Jesus's capacity to sin, is in reality,…
The first time I saw the inside of a prison was in 1999; I was 16. I hadn’t knocked over a fruit stand or been caught stealing hubcaps, I was just an unsuspecting teenager playing piano for a Louisiana gospel group. One Wednesday evening in October, my pastor and leader…
The act of naming carries a lot of weight in the Bible. Naming denotes authority and possession; the namer signifying that he understands the thing named, and therefore possesses the requisite wisdom to rule over it. God set the stage for naming when he named the domains during the first…
This short essay makes an obvious point: Church growth is a matter of the rate of entry into a church relative to the rate of exit from that church. Perhaps church growth literature has long recognized that fact. Yet given the greater focus in church – at least in my…
If you’ve not yet heard of Aaron Renn’s three worlds framework , here’s the quick version: once upon a time, being a Christian was a net social good in American society. Whatever was going on behind the scenes in elite institutions, the general rank-and-file perception of Christianity was positive. That…
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Daniel Albright ( Panaesthetics ) emphasizes the learned codes by which we discern musical meanings: “Today most of the codes that cue us to feel come from quotation, either direct quotation of musical phrases or indirect quotation of certain gestures we have learned to associate with certain emotions.” Learned where?…
The following remarks were given to introduce the first annual Nevin Lectures, February 7, 2014. Trinity House [now Theopolis] was founded in 2012 to promote the reformation of the church by training pastors, future pastors, and lay people in Scripture and liturgical theology. We believe the church exists for the…
Michael Allen and Scott Swain argue in their Reformed Catholicity (which I review here ) that the “rule of faith” that encapsulates the main thrust of Scripture provides a key that unlocks the treasures of Scripture. The rule arises from Scripture, but then becomes a pre-understanding of the whole Bible…
Revelation uses the word “sign” ( semeion ) seven times, all between chapters 12 and 20. This is John’s second book of signs, matching the early part of his gospel. Through these seven signs, new creation arrives. There are three overlapping variations in the passages that deal with signs -…
Goliath is dressed in metal: Bronze helmet, bronze scale armor, bronze greaves. His javelin is bronze, the head of his spear is iron. The original metal outfit in the Bible is the breastplate of the high priest, with its gold thread woven with other threads. With his scale armor, Goliath…
W ith Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock , Daniel Strange has written a superb book on the theology of religions. The book is careful, patient, methodologically conscious and conscientious, combining biblical and systematic theology with missiological interest. Strange makes extensive use of the Dutch Reformed tradition of Herman…
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