Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Rounding Out the Traditional Doctrine of Justification Justification and the Church The traditional Protestant doctrine of justification fails to fully hold together the soteriological (forgiveness of sins) and the ecclesiological (covenant membership). This is part of a larger problem, of course, namely, the dichotomizing of church and salvation. Biblically and…
John Piper’s book, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002) is, from any perspective, a passionate work. Nevertheless, I find I need to disagree with parts of it. The reason I do this is not because John Piper’s book does…
What follows is a handout for a Sunday School class I have taught recently at my church . Presbyterian doctrine teaches what the Bible says about God sovereign control over history and his unconditional choice (election) to bring some people to everlasting glory while allowing others to remain in unbelief…
“Covenantal Nomism” sounds like a description of tiny contract-loving creatures who live underground. But it is actually a recent term used to describe the pattern of religious belief and practice in first-century Palestinian Judaism. The idea is that God graciously establishes a structured relationship based on promises, a “covenant,” with…
What follows deals primarily with two essays, one by Dr. Douglas Kelly and the other by The Rev. Richard Phillips . My reason for writing this essay is that many people are confidently saying things about N. T. Wright that I believe are contrary to fact. I choose Dr. Kelly…
The Bible is often treated as a book of rules with directions for living. To some extent, that is true; but it is neither the whole truth nor the most important truth about the book. Ultimately, the Bible is a story about God and man and their reconciliation in Christ.…
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INTRODUCTION 1 Kings 1 moves from ?King David?E(first phrase of v 1) to ?King Solomon?E(vv 49-53). The first chapter is about the transition from one king to another, but the transition is difficult, rather than smooth. THE TEXT ?Now King David was old, advanced in years; and they put covers…
2 Kings 25:27-30 Kings, as we?ve seen, is not only a book about the unfaithfulness of Israel. It is a book about the faithfulness of God. In particular, it is a book about the faithfulness of God to the house of David, a faithfulness demonstrated over and over again in…
Roman Catholics and Protestants have both appealed to Kings to explore the significance of their divisions, and to defend their claims over against each other. For Roman Catholics, Rome is Jerusalem, maintaining the true worship of the temple while Protestants go after golden calves in places like Geneva and Wittenberg.…
Von Balthasar argues that Jesus is the archetypal child, who lives in constant dependence on His Father, who clings to “Abba,” who is constantly filled with thanks and awe toward His Father. And from that he develops a theology of childhood. Here’s one excerpt (taken from Stasiak’s book, mentioned above):…
One of the most stimulating works on infant baptism that I’ve found is Kurt Stasiak’s Return to Grace: A Theology for Infant Baptism . Stasiak is a Roman Catholic theologian who teaches liturgics at St Meinrad School of Theology. The first half of the book is a discussion of the…
INTRODUCTION No area of sacramental theology exposes assumptions concerning sacraments, and indeed concerning the Christian life, like the issue of infant baptism. Modern Christianity is plagued by an overly individualistic outlook, by the notion that religion is exclusively a matter of the heart, by a belief that religion is private,…
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