Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1. Introduction Reverend Richard Bacon is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Rowlett, Texas. He has written a tract entitled " What Mean Ye By This Service? Paedocommunion in Light of Passover, " printed by Presbyterian Heritage Publications (P.O. Box 180922, Dallas, TX 75218). I am writing this brief…
A Defense of the Use of Coordinated, Congregational Prayer in Public Worship My goal in this series of articles is to equip the members of Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church to worship God intelligently on Sunday and also to help visitors understand the biblical and theological rationale for our form of…
Several implications flow from this first group of considerations. First (D1), nature and natural objects reveal God to the eye of faith. The study of nature is the study of the design of the Spirit, and from it we learn how God designs things, and how we as His images…
Does the chronology in the Bible begin with the creation of Adam or with the creation of the universe? That is the question we are exploring this year. In January and February we took up the "Framework Hypothesis" as advocated by its most scholarly and powerful exponent, Dr. Meredith G.…
In preparing an essay on Matthew 24-25 for our subscription essayletter Studies in the Revelation , I have found it necessary to consider the structure of Matthew’s gospel as a whole. The following are the fruits of my research, such as they are. This essay is not intended as the…
An Explanation of and Apology for the Use of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds in Worship With the rest of the country I anxiously watched the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, but there is one image that I will always remember. It is not the firefight…
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Thomas thinks that grateful repayment of favors should match the sentiment of the giver rather than the deed or thing give. One of the objections is we can’t know what a benefactor is thinking: “We cannot base our actions on the unknown. God alone knows the heart of man. The…
Thomas relies heavily on Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca in his discussion of gratitude, but at one crucial point he introduces a distinctively Christian theme. Must we thank everyone who does us a beneficium ? Thomas answers with 1 Thessalonians 5:18: In all things give thanks. Ultimately, since God is cause…
One of the things often missed in critiques of scholasticism is its practical thrust. Questions angels and pinheads don’t capture the real genius of the best of scholasticism. In the hands of a master like Thomas, scholasticism is a mode of pastoral theology. A few illustrations from Thomas’s discussion of…
Robert Wilken closes a superb chapter on early Christian art in his recent The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity with a comment on the epochal significance of art in Christian history (pp. 53-4): “‘A cultural event of some importance was taking place,’ wrote the art historian Paul…
The editor of volume of the Summa on the virtues offers this superb and even lovely summary of the centrality of justice in Thomas’s conception of community. God is the source of all communal goods, since “each individual participates because physical, moral, spiritual, cultural values are derived from the causality…
Every time I read it, I’m impressed again with Edmund Bertram’s spirited description of the public role of pastors in Mansfield Park . He begins his speech in response to Mary Crawford’s dismissive “a clergyman is nothing.” Edmund replies: “A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must…
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