Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
While I think Zacharias Ursinus’ thinking would be profitable to consider, I am not recording his reflections in order for readers to come to agreement with his position as a whole. Rather, my interest is twofold. First, I think the way the Heidelberg Catechisms is used as a “proof” of…
On this question Hebrews 10 is quite clear and really needs no additional argument. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume…
Not all readers of this essay letter may be aware of it, but a tempest has been brewing in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a tempest created by the liberal party in that denomination. It came about this way. In January 2002, a Pastor’s Conference on covenant theology was…
Once upon a time there was such a thing as Calvinistic thought. It existed when I was younger, but seems to have largely disappeared in recent years. But let me elaborate. When I became a Calvinist, back in 1970, I bought a bunch of books. Over the next few years,…
CHRIST THE PREACHER How Ephesians Shows Us Why Preaching is Essential to Salvation & Sanctification Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a…
Tracking the informal shifts in Protestant opinion regarding Baptism can be a difficult business. For example, in 1849 Anglican clergyman William Goode published his defense of Evangelicalism against the Anglo-Catholics under the title, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of…
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W illiam Johnstone ( 1 & 2 Chronicles, Volume 1 ) argues that the Chronicler depicts Israel's warfare as “sacramental.” The brief account of the war with the Hagrites in 1 Chronicles 5:18-22 is an early example. “Israel is the agent of the LORD'S rule on earth,” he writes, adding…
A faith has been shaken, illusions shattered, pieties punctured,” writes Damon Linker at The Week . The faith is progressivism, which Linker characterizes as liberalism-plus. Progressives believe in rights and all that but “add something else: a quasi-eschatological faith in historical progress that gives the movement its name. This belief…
T o Roman pagans, Judaism was a solvent of the bonds linking religion, household, and polity. Tacitus wrote, “Those who come over to their religion . . . have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and…
P aul's Damascus road conversion from persecutor of the church to apostle is well-known. His life story figures his hope for Israel, that the people who killed the Lord of glory would see the pierced Shepherd and repent. Peter's transition from persecutor to apostle is less obvious, but no less…
E vangelicals have long been dismissed by Catholics, Orthodox, and confessional or mainline Protestants as “biblicists.” Evangelicals are still being dismissed as biblicists these days, but more often than in the past the charge comes from others within the broadly Evangelical world. It's not always clear what's being condemned when…
H ope Jahren's memoir of a life in science, Lab Girl , has three sections: “Roots and Leaves”; “Wood and Knots”; “Flowers and Fruits.” She intersperses autobiographical chapters with vivid, personified descriptions of the life of plants. “No risk,” she writes, “is more terrifying than that taken by the first…
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