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…
Showing page 233 of 309
Showing page 31 of 43
W illiam Stuntz's Collapse of American Criminal Justice is as relentless as a prosecutor's closing. His main charge is that American criminal justice has become a preserve of arbitrary discretionary power. Speed limits offer a simple opening example. Everyone knows that the posted speed limits are not the real speed…
An angel unravels the mystery of Babylon the harlot and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Most of what the angel says has to do with the beast, first explaining the beast (v. 8), then its seven heads (vv. 9-11), then its horns (vv. 12-18). The horn…
Battles between liberals/progressive and conservatives have broken out in many denominations, from Missouri Synod Lutherans to Southern Baptists, and they are still going on in the Episcopal and Presbyterian and other churches. Some have suggested that this internecine warfare is the cause of the decline of denominational identity, loyalty, and…
Paul opens his mouth wide ( anoigo ) to speak to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:11), and his open mouth expresses the openness of his heart ( he kardia hemon peplatuntai ). He wants the Corinthians to respond by opening themselves up just as wide (v. 13), so that there…
Joan Copjec's 1994 Read My Desire (recently reprinted by Verso) sets Lacan against the historicists, specifically against Foucault. But also, along the way, Lacan against the structuralists. It's dense going, as one might expect. Early on, Copjec isolates the trouble with Foucault. He “realizes the necessity of conceiving the mode…
The notion of conferred authority is strange. After all, if authority is conferred, it has to be conferred by someone with authority, presumably someone with more authority than the recipient of authority. Can a lesser authority confer greater authority? Medieval Popes thought not, and their coronation powers ritualized their superiority…
Showing page 408 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
