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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In the course of demonstrating that Christ is not a creature, Athanasius pointed to the difference between human and divine fatherhood and sonship. Human sons have the potential to become fathers, and often do become fathers. But God the Father is unbegotten, and God the Son begets no other. That…
In her brilliant book, Evil in Modern Thought , Susan Neiman summarizes Kant’s epistemology as torn between two themes: One, Kant’s insistence that our knowledge is not God’s knowledge, and that we should be content with finitude; two, that we still want to be God, and that this straining (evident…
Machiavelli offered a practical politics that emphasized image over reality: “it is not necessary for a prince to have all of the above-mentioned qualities, but it is very necessary for him to appear to have them. Furthermore, I will be so bold as to assert this: that practicing them, that…
“Denken ist danken.” I’ve repeated Heidegger’s axiom a number of times, but what makes this true? One angle: Our thoughts are distorted by fear, bitterness, hatred, anger, frustration, discontent, envy. But thankfulness is a solvent of all these; the thankful man cannot be frustrated with the portion he receives from…
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , Weber notes that the “Baptist denominations along with the predestinationists, especially the strict Calvinists, carried out the most radical devaluation of all sacraments as means to salvation, and thus accomplished the religious rationalization of the world in its most extreme…
ACTIONS A MAN MIGHT PLAY As many critics have noted, Hamlet is a play consumed with the question of action, in all the various permutations of that term. Hamlet opens the play questioning whether he should take the action of suicide, and after the ghost’s appearance Hamlet questions whether he…
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