Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
> Dave, > Jason > > I am surprised this is so hard for me to communicate effectively. Prosecuting Leithart while inwardly struggling with my questions was easy, because the issue was NEVER “Whose views are correct?” In a Reformed denomination we all operate under the supposition that our doctrinal…
Discussions on the catholicity of the church have led one RC advocate to write to me that according to 2 Timothy 1:16-18, Paul is clearly and unmistakably praying for a dead person. He points to a couple of Protestant writers who had agreed with this, though they are in a…
The great True Catholic historian, Philip Schaff, points out as regards the beginning of prayers to the saints in the post-Nicene Church: Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Volume III, Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity A.D. 311-390, P. 409-427). In the first three centuries the veneration of the martyrs in…
The Nicene Creed states that the Holy Spirit “spoke through the prophets in (or into) one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” Contrary to usual translations, neither the Greek nor the Latin originals say “ I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” As written, the thought of the authors…
One of the latest sectarian movements to arise around the fringes of the Christian religion is something called “family integrated churches.” What this seems to mean, depending on the advocate, is that youth groups are bad, age-segregated Sunday Schools are bad, families need to sit together in church, and even…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 8. Comments on The Covenantal Gospel by Cornelis van der Waal This is an excellent book, and every Bible student should read and master it. Cornelis van der Waal was…
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R obert Solomon's The Joy of Philosophy is a defense of philosophy as a joyful wisdom, a la Solomon's philosophical hero, Nietzsche. Solomon knows that Nietzsche isn't even considered a philosopher by many: “His prose is too shimmering, too full of sarcasm and wise-cracks, too personal. He has too much…
F ew readers love Fanny Price. Some hate her as deeply as Mark Twain professed to hate her creator. CS Lewis had Screwtape call her “not only a Christian, but such a Christian—a vile, sneaking, simpering, demure, monosyllabic, mouselike, watery, insignificant, virginal, bread-and-butter miss . . . A two-faced little…
I n his Christian Ethics and the Church (67), Philip Turner provides a masterful summary of “the link Ephesians makes between the fulfillment of God's purpose, the perception of God's glory, and the common life of the assembly”: The members of God's assembly have been chosen ‘before the foundation of…
T wice in 1 Chronicles, David says he was prevented from building the temple because he shed “copious” blood (22:6–11; 28:2–7). The passages frame his final arrangements for the temple and his succession exhortations to Solomon. After analyzing the texts, Donald Murray concludes that “the core of [Yahweh's] objection to…
W illiam Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564. Baptized , but was he a Christian? The answer partly depends on what we think happens when someone is baptized. Many Christians believe that baptism marks the beginning of life as a Christian. I am one of those Christians. My short…
T he thesis of John Wright's 1993 essay on the Chronicler's account of David's census (1 Chronicles 21) is implausible. Commentators, he says, have read the Chronicler's narrative through the lens of 2 Samuel 24, which recounts the same event. Wright argues that the Chronicler doesn't retell the story of…
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