Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I've pastored a very rural church for well over a decade. Our town has about 1,000 people and will never grow until Jesus returns. 38 people attend our worship on Sundays. Here's a quick list of what we’ve done to grow our church, and what I’ve done to survive pastorally.…
Thanks for sharing so honestly about your current crisis of creativity. I totally understand and relate to that; it’s happened many times in my musical life thus far, and I’ve begun to accept it as a normal rhythm of the creative process. I actually went through a serious dry spell…
The Broken Stones of Israel At Sinai, the tablets of the Law of Moses were broken and restored. The Old Testament is a history of “new covenants,” including that promised in Jeremiah and fulfilled in Zechariah. Ultimately, the vertical Oath and the horizontal Sanctions met in the death of Jesus…
Woe to the sinful nation. Woe to those who enlarge their estates and build their portfolios. Woe to the drunks. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to the proud who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to Congressmen who pass unjust laws and to…
The interpretation of Romans 7:7-25 is notoriously difficult. Good scholars disagree on many aspects of the passage, but the central interpretative difficulty concerns the identity of the “I.” Is Paul referring to himself? Is Paul referring to himself pre- or post-conversion? Does the “I” refer to Adam? Is the “I”…
You board the Metra train at Arlington Heights station one afternoon, heading to downtown Chicago for some sight-seeing. As the train departs from the station, a man in jeans, a striped t-shirt, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap enters your train car, and begins asking to see each passenger’s…
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?In the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it.?E Growth and learning is awkward and difficult, especially when we are learning about something as complex as another human being, another human being who is radically different from ourselves. As I mentioned in the…
This exhortation was inspired by recent lectures by James Jordan. In this morning?s sermon, Pastor Wilson will be talking about learning and growth in marriage, and as he will point out that this growth, even apart from sin, can be awkward and difficult. Between one stage of knowledge and illumination…
INTRODUCTION In chapter 8, Paul brings to a climax his discussion of the law, its cooption by sin, and the resulting death. He has shown the law to be weak and helpless in dealing with the condition of sin and death, and now announces that God has done what the…
Does baptism justify? Justification is, of course, an act of God . But that puts the question differently without deflecting it: Does baptism declare a justification for the person baptized? Assuming the Augustinian (and Reformed) view that baptism is an act of God not of man, we may ask, is…
Chuck Lowe has a thoughtful analysis of Romans 8:1-4 in an essay in the June 1999 issue of JETS . He argues that the text means just what it says, that there is “no condemnation” because those who are in Christ have been liberated from sin and death through the…
David Yeago offers a powerful critique of certain construals of the law/gospel distinction in a 1993 article from Pro Ecclesia . He does not doubt that law and gospel must be distinguished, but contends that when the law/gospel distinction becomes the “ultimate structuring horizon of Christian belief.” When the distinction…
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