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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P opular cliche is that Lutherans and Anglicans are high-church, Reformed lower. Lutherans and Anglicans are sacramentally-minded, Reformed less so. Lutherans and Anglicans take liturgy serious; Reformed do not. There's reason to think this isn't right. In fact, there are reasons to think that the opposite is the case. Consider…
I n a fascinating article on “the structure of significant lives,” Norman Fiering summarizes Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy's description of the development of Freud and the psychoanalytic movement. Each involves a different sort of time, and a different “grammar”—a different verbal mood and a different declension for Freud and his followers. Like…
A ccording to John Milbank (“Politics of time”), “libertarianism insists that the future lies with the isolated ‘reflective' individual manipulating a plethora of life-choices” but also “claims that civil society is sound and that new forms of community are emerging: sport associations, women's support networks, single-issue groups, etc.” Milbank is…
A t the end of 1 Chronicles, David delivers a series of speeches to the qahal (assembly) of Israel, the officers and princes of his court and bureaucracy (on 1 Chronicles 28–29 generally, see here ). The qahal consists of the “princes” ( sar is used 6x) and warriors (…
M y youngest son, Smith, is reading through the Bible this year. He's getting bogged down in Leviticus. I tell him, Leviticus is my life. I've studied Leviticus more intensely and over a longer stretch of time than any other book of the Bible, and it's shaped by understanding of…
I n a New Yorker profile of filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan ( Manchester By the Sea ), Rebecca Mead calls attention to Lonergan's interest in depicting the lives of teens, manifest especially in his film Margaret . In Margaret , the lead character, named Lisa, not Margaret, “is, at different points,…
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