Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Study in Biblical and Practical Theology Sunday School Notes / Epiphany 2004 Introductory Note: January 6 is Epiphany in the traditional church calendar. Though Epiphany is often treated as a single day, with the Sundays following counted as “Sundays after Epiphany,” we will treat Epiphany as an extended season.…
Imagine someone from another world trying to learn to live in our society according to our customs. What if someone gave him a check for a hundred dollars for his birthday–the first check he had ever seen in his life? Would he immediately understand how a check was used? Perhaps…
According to Presbyterian doctrine, as articulated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, baptism is a baptized person’s “admission… into the visible church.” By referring to the “visible church,” the document makes clear it is referring to the present institutional Church with all her imperfections, as opposed to the future Church…
N. T. Wright claims that in the Apostle Paul’s writings “righteousness,” as it predicated of humans, denotes “covenant membership.” When he wrote this in the New Bible Dictionary edited by Sinclair Ferguson, J. I. Packer, and David Wright, no one thought this was too big a deal. However, when he…
It seems almost human nature to think that we can find something to do for God that will make Him do us favors. If we live more virtuously, or cut down on a vice or two, then God will have to reward us. But the problem with this notion is…
The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. The First Commandment reads (I’m using NASB throughout): “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Obviously, trusting in someone or something else (even one’s own good works) for justification, sanctification, and eternal life”…
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I n a 2009 piece in The Weekly Standard , Sam Schulman argues that gay marriage replicates “a very limited, very modern, and very culture-bound version of marriage. Gay advocates have chosen wisely in this. They are replicating what we might call the ‘romantic marriage,' a kind of marriage that…
It's not clear how much rethinking Gordon Wenham has done to produce his Rethinking Genesis 1-11 . After all, Wenham has been writing illuminating commentary about the early chapters of Genesis for a long time. Re-thought or not, his new little book contains some treasures. He observes the inversion of…
R onald Byars knows that mainline churches are in trouble, and in Finding Our Balance , he lays out a program for renewal. Much depends on restoring a positive notion of authority and a bounded orthodoxy, since “every community, including the ecumenical church, needs boundaries” (46). Doctrinal renewal is not…
Rowan Greer's One Path for All is a study of Gregory of Nyssa's writings on the Christian life. It includes a dozen selections from Gregory's works, and then a series of essays on the pathway of pilgrimage and battle that every baptized person must, along with all the baptized, walk.…
Lisa Deam's A World Transformed is an engaging, meditative study of what she calls the “spirituality of medieval maps.” Maps, she argues, are never neutral. They “show what their users want and need to believe about the world. They allow us to daydream, to plot and scheme, to envision our…
Our very existence is gift. That means that our very existence involves participation in the life of the giver. Paul Griffiths (Decreation, 200) puts it this way: “the fact that you are is sheer unmerited gift, and what you are is a participant in the LORD.” Sin is the rejection…
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