Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Misunderstanding “Galatianism” has caused several problems in the Reformed church. Because circumcision is at issue in the Galatian epistle, some have fallen into thinking that ritual per se, rather than anything uniquely Mosaic or Jewish, is the object of Paul’s critique. Likewise, his polemic against “works of the law” is…
Many texts in the NT become more perspicuous if we keep in mind the possibility — and indeed ubiquity — of Gentile God-fearers in the Old Covenant. After the special covenant with Israel is set up, Gentiles are not altogether excluded from the hope of salvation. Israel’s special status in…
I was once trying to get a sermon out of Ephesians 1.12-14 and it seemed obvious that I should look for two parallel statements both ending with the phrase, “to the praise of his glory.” Paul here begins talking about two groups of people (“you” and “we”), and he later…
WHY A DENOMINATION WITH SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN ROOTS SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE “NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL” In my denomination, the PCA, we are continually haunted by the sins of our racist Southern past. It has become an annual rite at General Assembly for the issue to be addressed one way or…
Recent debates over whether or not, “justification is central” to Paul’s theology have reminded me of a sermon I once heard by a Presbyterian seminary student. This African American student challenged his audience on the sin of racism and the ways it might manifest itself among us. Like any good…
In Charles Hodge’s 1853 article, “Idea of the Church,” his stated aim is to analyze the idea of the Church proposed in the Apostles’ Creed, in which, “the Church is declared to be “the Communion of the Saints.” He writes: The conception of the Church as the communion of saints…
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For those interested in Reformed political thought, Bill Chellis of De Regno Christi has organized an online discussion of Darryl Hart’s recent book, A Secular Faith . You can find the discussion at a new address: http://deregnochristi.org/2007/03/19/throwing-down-the-gauntlet.
For those interested in Reformed political thought, Bill Chellis of De Regno Christi has organized an online discussion of Darryl Hart’s recent book, A Secular Faith . You can find the discussion at a new address: http://deregnochristi.org/2007/03/19/throwing-down-the-gauntlet.
Muir again: “In [medieval] England taking communion was called ‘taking one’s rights,’ which meant asserting one’s membership in the community, and to suffer excommunication . . . would have meant exclusion from both the universal community of believers and the local community of citizens . . . . Although the…
In the second edition of his book on ritual in the early modern period (Cambridge 2005), Edward Muir describes the 14th and 15th century obsession with “Christ’s carnality”: “As Leo Steinberg has shown, in fifteenth-century Italy thoroughly Christian artists made visual allusions to Christ’s phallus, showing that the god-man had…
INTRODUCTION Last week, we looked at parents’ responsibility to guard the “inside” of the family from dangerous influences from “outside.” But the family also has a positive relation to the world outside. A healthy family is open in proper ways toward the outside, and is supposed to affect the world…
Psalm 128: How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like…
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