Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Study in Biblical and Practical Theology Sunday School Notes / Epiphany 2004 Introductory Note: January 6 is Epiphany in the traditional church calendar. Though Epiphany is often treated as a single day, with the Sundays following counted as “Sundays after Epiphany,” we will treat Epiphany as an extended season.…
Imagine someone from another world trying to learn to live in our society according to our customs. What if someone gave him a check for a hundred dollars for his birthday–the first check he had ever seen in his life? Would he immediately understand how a check was used? Perhaps…
According to Presbyterian doctrine, as articulated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, baptism is a baptized person’s “admission… into the visible church.” By referring to the “visible church,” the document makes clear it is referring to the present institutional Church with all her imperfections, as opposed to the future Church…
N. T. Wright claims that in the Apostle Paul’s writings “righteousness,” as it predicated of humans, denotes “covenant membership.” When he wrote this in the New Bible Dictionary edited by Sinclair Ferguson, J. I. Packer, and David Wright, no one thought this was too big a deal. However, when he…
It seems almost human nature to think that we can find something to do for God that will make Him do us favors. If we live more virtuously, or cut down on a vice or two, then God will have to reward us. But the problem with this notion is…
The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. The First Commandment reads (I’m using NASB throughout): “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Obviously, trusting in someone or something else (even one’s own good works) for justification, sanctification, and eternal life”…
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Part 2: A Dogmatica Minora Section 1: Trinity Hart ended the previous section emphasizing that Christianity offers a story of the infinite that is also, contrary to all paganism, a story of beauty. To fill out this Christian narrative of infinite beauty, Hart focuses on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed as ?the…
Now Yhoram son of ‘Achav reigned-as-king over Yisrael in Shimron in the year, the 18th, to Yhoshafat king of Yehudah. And he reigned-as-king two and ten years. And he did the evil in the eyes of Yahweh only not as his father and as his mother. And he caused-to-turn-aside the…
In 2 Kings 2, Elisha heals a “barren land,” a land described as “causing miscarriage” or as “abortive” itself. The land is mother, and the new “father” of the prophets sows salt to heal the land and make it fruitful. 2 Kings 3 picks up on this mother-land analogy. Elisha…
Jehoram goes out into the wilderness with Jehoshaphat, and as soon as he encounters a bit of difficulty, he crumples, blaming his bad fortune on Yahweh’s perfidy: “Yahweh has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab.” He had a good teacher: When Ahab received the…
Jehoram the son of Ahab wants to suppress the rebellion of Mesha, king of Moab (2 Kings 3). He gains the support of Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom, and then marches into the wilderness. They “go around” seven days and then find there is no water. Jehoshaphat, typically, asks…
In his treatise on the resurrection of the flesh, Tertullian makes an intriguing connection between the phenomenology of baptism and the resurrection of the body. Baptism, he points out, is a corporeal rite, and this washing of the body points ot a resurrection of the body: “unless it were a…
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