Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When someone expounds the way of salvation found in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms and in the easily-accessible writings of the Reformed heritage, he often finds him embroiled in a debates about the covenant of works and the Mosaic Covenant. One is “proven” to be aberrant by allegations that one…
The ultimate condemnation of a position in Reformed circles is to show that it “leads back to Rome.” Indeed, one gets the feeling that Rome is a worse destination for a Presbyterian than even hell itself. The accusation of Rome stings deeply, of course, because it means that all the…
One of the odd features of Michael Horton’s version of Covenant theology is his interpretation of the covenant God made with Abraham 1 in Genesis 15. According to Horton, The very way in which God made the covenant with Abraham (putting him to sleep; walking through the torn animals by…
What was I trying to do, when I wrote my book on Mark’s Gospel ? Fundamentally, I wanted a book that would change readers by making them better readers of the Gospel of Mark. My ideal reader is not someone who goes to the book to use as a resource…
Why do we need sacraments? According to the Westminster Confession, sacraments were instituted by Christ “to confirm our interest in him” (27.1), “to strengthen and increase” the “faith” of those within the Covenant of Grace and “to distinguish them from those that are without” that covenant (Westminster Larger Catechism, #162).…
In Isaiah 5:1-7, we have a typical covenant lawsuit, in which the Lord accuses his people of rejecting his grace and mercy. It is not my intention here to exegete the entire passage, or to look at the way the vineyard image used here serves as a metaphor in other…
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David C. Young points out in his A Brief History of the Olympic Games that “The term Olympic Games is . . . a bad mistranslation of Greek Olympiakoi agones .” The problem is that agones gets converted into ludus , ludi , ludicrum , ie, diversions and games. “The…
Schindler ( Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God , p. 301) suggests that “creaturely power begins in wonder and gratitude before the inherent beauty of the Other.” Wonder is not a passive contemplation, he’s saying, but the source of our initiative, power, and creativity: “The power of…
Schindler ( Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God , 298-301) points to Mary as a model of created existence: “Mary reveals the original and abiding asymmetry in the creature’s relation to God” ( fiat ).” That is, all creatures receive the gift of existence from God. Second,…
In a long footnote in his brilliant Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God (p. 257) , David Schindler gives this lengthy quotation from W. Norris Clarke’s Explorations in Metaphysics: Being-God-Person : He refers to the “profound dimension of receptivity, hence relativity, in all of us, even preceding…
Drawing from John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body (pp. 246-50). Shame means hiding, withdrawal from visibility, withdrawal from communion (Genesis 3:7). God created us with bodies so we can share ourselves with one another - with touch, with speech, with mutual regard.…
In a 1996 Communio article, Joseph Ratzinger argues that the child in the womb is the basic model of human existence: “For what is at stake here? The being of another person is so closely interwoven with the being of this person, the mother, that for the present it can…
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