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

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Baptism

Baptismal Efficacy and the Reformed Tradition: Past, Present, and Future

OUR REFORMED HERITAGE When a Reformed Christian hears “baptismal regeneration,” what comes to mind? “Heresy,” most likely. Unfortunately, many in the Reformed community today have lost touch with some important aspects of their own heritage. If Reformed theology is going to continue reforming according to Scripture, we must recover the…

by Rich LuskMay 29, 2002
Theologia

Standing on the Promises | Faith and Assurance in the Bible

Faith and assurance are recurring subjects of controversy in Evangelical circles. We all agree that we are saved by the righteousness of Christ reckoned to us, which we receive through faith alone. Jesus lived and died and rose again as the representative of his people so that all of them…

by Mark HorneMay 24, 2002
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New Perspective on Paul

Getting Some Perspectiveon the “New Perspective”

What’s at stake (or not!) for Reformed Pastors regarding the contemporary discussion of Paul and “the works of the law”? There has been a great deal of talk lately about “the New Perspective on Paul” and the works of, among others, Ed Sanders, James Dunn, and N. T. Wright. Each…

by Mark HorneMay 24, 2002
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Theologia

Did Jesus Preach Gospel or Law to the Rich Young Ruler?

When Christ enjoins upon the young man the duty of following him (Mt. 19:23), he does not give a counsel, but a command to all in common because no one can have a hope of salvation unless he follows Christ (2 Pet. 2:21), although from a particular cause it is…

by Mark HorneMay 20, 2002
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New Perspective on Paul

A Short Note on N. T. WRIGHT and His Reformed Critics

This short paper is not an attempt to provide a comprehensive analysis and defense of N. T. Wright, much less the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” as a whole. Indeed, Wright’s theological project has some failings and the New Perspective as a movement must be considered a mixed bag of…

by Rich LuskMay 20, 2002
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Biblical Studies

Leviticus 1:3-4, 10

Leviticus 1:3-13, Translation 3 If his Nearbringing is an Ascension from the herd, a perfect male shall he bring him near. To the forecourt of the Tent of Meeting he shall bring him near, for his acceptance before Yahweh. 4 And he shall lean his hand on the head of…

by James B. JordanAugust 5, 2001

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Abrahamic South

D avid Goldman ( It's Not the End of the World, It's Just the End of You ) claims that the Global South is marked by two trends: “the fastest rate of cultural extinction in history as well as the fastest rate of Christian evangelization in history.” The two, he…

June 3, 2015

Chivalry After Christendom

Once, writes Mark Greengrass ( Christendom Destroyed ), “Nobility existed to defend Christendom by force of arms. Knighthood was the institution founded by the Church for the purpose” (123). Changes in the technology of warfare, along with the breakdown of unified Christendom, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, undermined that…

June 3, 2015

The Invention of Pedigree

The peerage seems a near-eternal fixture of European society, but Mark Greengrass ( Christendom Destroyed ) argues that it was a creation of the early modern period. Dukedoms and peerages “hardly existed before 1500,” but a century or so later “titled aristocrats had mainly taken over as the means by…

June 3, 2015

The Debt Society

Mark Greengrass ( Christendom Destroyed ) observes that nearly everyone in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe was in debt at one time or another during their lifetimes: “In Rome, for example, about 6 percent of the population found themselves imprisoned for debt in 1582 alone.” Court records provide further evidence: “Debt…

June 3, 2015
Political Theology

Soul Freedom

Os Guinness is utterly convincing, and characteristically wise, on many points in his 2014 The Global Public Square . He is right to emphasize that “many of the world's traditional settlements of religion and public life are floundering” (56). He refers to a UK case in which a woman was…

June 2, 2015

Colonialism and Secularization

Andrew Walls ( The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History ) argues that Europe's encounter with non-Western peoples was one of the key factors in the secularization of Western politics. At a moment when Europe's hegemony over the world seemed secure, it came “by means of the expansion of the Iberian…

June 2, 2015

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