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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Christians founded universities in medieval Europe. They were Christian institutions, but no one (to my knowledge) sat down to work out an explicitly Christian model of education before starting a university. Universities were Christians instinctively rather than self-consciously. Dittos for many of the other Christian institutions that arose during the…
At the Trinity House site , Pastor Rich Bledsoe compares Protestant-Catholic conflicts to family quarrels, and argues that Protestants need to enter an adult relationship with the Catholic church.
One of Danah Boyd’s points in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens is that teens have much less freedom of movement than teens of the past, and so are nudged toward virtual rather than face-to-face relations. As Alissa Quart sums it up in her NYTBR review: “In her…
Carl Trueman posted Rusty Reno’s barroom analysis of the Biola panel on the future of Protestantism. He writes in part: “Both of us, in a sense, see an epochal change taking place in American Christianity. As far as conservative Protestantism is concerned, I connect this to the collapse of traditional…
Writing at Slate , William Saletan says that “There will always be Christians, Muslims, and Jews who condemn homosexuality. There will be bigots, bashers, and demagogues. And in some places, particularly in Africa and Asia, there will be persecution and oppressive laws. But in this country, religious resistance is crumbling.…
In the wilderness, Israel eats they know not what, which they call “manna,” “What is it?” The Old Testament describes it as being like something flakey ( chaspas ) like frost ( kafor ; Exodus 16:14). Alternatively it is like bedellium ( bedolach ; Numbers 11:7), which doesn’t seem like…
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