Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference and the Assurance of Grace Recently, there has been some controversy over the presentations of four speakers at the Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference. Accusations have been made including a denial of justification by faith alone and something close enough to “baptismal regeneration” that it…
Today, many in the Reformed world view a meritorious covenant of works as essential to a proper understanding of the gospel. These theologians believe that God set up a program in the Garden by which Adam would merit eternal life and blessing by his obedience. These same theologians usually regard…
After I graduated from college in 1989, I spent a summer in the Atlanta area in Georgia learning that I was not cut out for construction work. Then I met George Grant, one of my favorite authors. He was working for a church in South Florida in charge of their…
One meaning of “righteousness” in the Bible is moral uprightness. Perhaps a more basic meaning would be faithfulness. For example, Psalm 96.13 praises God, saying: He will judge the world in righteousness, And the peoples in faithfulness. In Hebrew poetry two lines often say the same thing using different words.…
I once saw “eschatology” defined as the study of edible French snails. But it really means the doctrine of the last things in Christian theology. In American Evangelical culture it is usually reduced to science fiction stories. But for the Apostle Paul it was actually the key to the Christian…
To understand the view of Nicholas Thomas Wright regarding Christ’s work of redemption, one must begin with the centrality of Adam to the plight of the human race. Anyone who has heard Wright’s lectures on Philippians will not be able to forget his haunting appeal to Genesis 5.3 as a…
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1 Chronicles 23–27 describes the distribution of responsibilities for the house of Yahweh (chs. 23–26) and the management of the king's palace and estates (ch. 27). Using lots, David and the priests create “divisions” of priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, treasurers, and others. “Division” translates the Hebrew machaloqet , derived from…
I n her After Writing , Catherine Pickstock argues that the Cartesian Cogito is grounded in a Cartesian ontology, which is in turn related to a Cartesian politics. According to Descartes' Regulae , she says, “being is defined as that which is clear and distinct, available to absolute and certain…
A ccording to Jean-Louis Chretien ( Hand to Hand ), the notion of God as divine artist and of the world as art comes into its own in Augustine’s Trinitarian notion of ars divina , developed in medieval theology and Baroque art theory. This tradition was not free of ambiguities.…
E veryone who's read Genesis 1 knows that Hebrews reckoned time from night till day. “Evening and morning, one day” is a refrain of the creation week (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). Lamps in the tabernacle burned continually ( tamid ), that is, from evening till morning (Leviticus…
D espite its orientation to Catholics, Thomas Ryan's Christian Unity is full of practical suggestions for pastors, lay people, and theologians of all Christian traditions. A few more or less random gleanings. Ryan quotes Cardinal Kurt Koch's warning that we must not be satisfied with mutual recognition in a situation…
P lato said that purification is a science of division. So is creation. In Genesis, God forms the formless by separating. He divides ( badal ) light from darkness to form a temporal structure of evenings and mornings (Genesis 1:4) and waters from water to create a vertical spatiality (Genesis…
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