Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference and the Assurance of Grace Recently, there has been some controversy over the presentations of four speakers at the Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference. Accusations have been made including a denial of justification by faith alone and something close enough to “baptismal regeneration” that it…
Today, many in the Reformed world view a meritorious covenant of works as essential to a proper understanding of the gospel. These theologians believe that God set up a program in the Garden by which Adam would merit eternal life and blessing by his obedience. These same theologians usually regard…
After I graduated from college in 1989, I spent a summer in the Atlanta area in Georgia learning that I was not cut out for construction work. Then I met George Grant, one of my favorite authors. He was working for a church in South Florida in charge of their…
One meaning of “righteousness” in the Bible is moral uprightness. Perhaps a more basic meaning would be faithfulness. For example, Psalm 96.13 praises God, saying: He will judge the world in righteousness, And the peoples in faithfulness. In Hebrew poetry two lines often say the same thing using different words.…
I once saw “eschatology” defined as the study of edible French snails. But it really means the doctrine of the last things in Christian theology. In American Evangelical culture it is usually reduced to science fiction stories. But for the Apostle Paul it was actually the key to the Christian…
To understand the view of Nicholas Thomas Wright regarding Christ’s work of redemption, one must begin with the centrality of Adam to the plight of the human race. Anyone who has heard Wright’s lectures on Philippians will not be able to forget his haunting appeal to Genesis 5.3 as a…
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In his 1972 Denominational Society , the late Andrew Greeley sketches the shape of the denominational society. It is a masterly portrait that captures the energies and contradictions of American religion. He notes, for instance, that “most American religious groups have accepted the existing social order and served as integrators…
In his contribution to Church, Identity, and Change , David Carlson offers an honest assessment of the entanglement of Lutheran Eucharistic theology with German Ethnicity. Friedrich Wyneken, “a key architect of confessional Lutheranism in America” (266), came to American intent on preserving Lutheran fellowship. As he understood it, “fellowship .…
The neatly structured song of the martyrs (Revelation 15:3-4) is a turning point in the book. The first four lines are set up in two pairs. The first line describes the Lord’s works as “great and marvelous,” like the sign that John sees in heaven (v. 1). This is exodus…
For a long time, opponents of the ecumenical movement have charged that it was an attempt to arrive at a doctrinally-light, lowest-common-denominator, man-made organizational unity. The slightest investigation would have demonstrated that this is untrue. The World Council of Church's New Delhi 1961 statement “On Unity” may be imperfect in…
Conflict has its uses. A form of social interaction, it seems nearly essential to maintaining the structures of society. Georg Simmel writes that “the positive and integrating role of antagonism is shown in structures which stand out by the sharpness and carefully preserved purity of their social divisions and gradations.…
Before Israel crosses the Jordan, the Lord reminds the three trans-Jordanian tribes of the deal struck with them. Yahweh has already begun to give them the land He promised to Abraham, and Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh will settle there. Before they settle down, though, they need…
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