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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Assurance

The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation & Evangelism

Book Review The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation & Evangelism by Norman Shepherd The Call of Grace is an excellent manual to put in the hands of laymen to teach them how to rest in God’s grace while taking seriously the prize of the upward call of…

by Mark HorneJune 3, 2002
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Baptism

Why I Did Not Baptize My Daughter

My Role as a Parent in My Children’s Salvation Evangeline Jael Horne is our third child. My two boys were born while we were at seminary and we had the privilege of giving them to Jeff Meyers, our pastor at that time, for baptism. When Evangeline was born, however, I…

by Mark HorneJune 3, 2002
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Eucharist

John Calvin & Paedocommunion

John Calvin writes in the Institutes about the possibility of admitting children to the Lord’s Supper by virtue of their baptism once and only once: At length they object, that there is not greater reason for admitting infants to baptism than to the Lord’s Supper, to which, however, they are…

by Mark HorneJune 1, 2002
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Eucharist

For the Children’s Sake: An Alternative Angle on the Paedocommunion Debate

The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…

by Rich LuskJune 1, 2002
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Baptism

Can Baptism Do Anything?

Lots of conservative Protestants want to answer “no” to this question. The problem with this position is that conservative Protestants are bound to believe what the Bible teaches. And the Bible says inconvenient things, like “baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3.21), or “all of you who were baptized into…

by Mark HorneMay 30, 2002
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Baptism

Calvin On Baptism, Penance, and Absolution

This paper is something of a follow-up to my earlier study, “ Baptismal Efficacy and the Reformed Tradition: Past, Present, and Future .” One of the more controversial aspects of that paper was my claim that Calvin held to a very high view of baptismal efficacy. Indeed, he was a…

by Rich LuskMay 30, 2002

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Love (III)

John Drury begins his book on George Herbert, Music At Midnight , with Herbert's “Love (III)”: Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I…

October 1, 2015

Self-Surprise

“I surprised myself,” says the woman who courageously fights off a mugger, the wife caught in an affair, the student who pipes up to disagree with the celebrity professor, the father dismayed by his rage at an unruly child. It’s such a common expression that we fail to see how…

October 1, 2015

Jesus and the Professional Theologians

On the Sabbath after the last day of the Feast of Booths, Jesus has an intense debate with Jewish leaders in Herod’s temple, climaxing with Jesus’ declaration, “Before Abraham was, I am.” The Jews have recently been eager to execute an adulteress. Now they’ve found a new target, a blasphemer,…

October 1, 2015

Sacrifice and Worship After Stoicheia

Let me begin with two starting points, too rapidly explained and defended. First: It is clear from the New Testament’s handful of uses of the phrase that ta stoicheia tou kosmou are connected with the regulations of the Torah. During her childhood (Galatians 4:3), Paul says, Israel was enslaved to…

September 30, 2015

Unseemly Members

It has been common in the Christian West, particularly in the modern era, to define the image of God in terms of rationality or some other intellectual capacity. Confronted by a madman, Christians will no doubt say “Oh, they’re human too,” but by this definition they are clearly defective humans.…

September 30, 2015

Premodern Condition

In The Premodern Condition , Bruce Holsinger examines the influence of medieval studies on some of the major figures in the 1960s French avant garde . By “medieval studies,” he means both scholarship on the Middle Ages (Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, the Annales school, Denis de Rougement’s Love in the…

September 30, 2015

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