Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
OUR REFORMED HERITAGE When a Reformed Christian hears “baptismal regeneration,” what comes to mind? “Heresy,” most likely. Unfortunately, many in the Reformed community today have lost touch with some important aspects of their own heritage. If Reformed theology is going to continue reforming according to Scripture, we must recover the…
Faith and assurance are recurring subjects of controversy in Evangelical circles. We all agree that we are saved by the righteousness of Christ reckoned to us, which we receive through faith alone. Jesus lived and died and rose again as the representative of his people so that all of them…
What’s at stake (or not!) for Reformed Pastors regarding the contemporary discussion of Paul and “the works of the law”? There has been a great deal of talk lately about “the New Perspective on Paul” and the works of, among others, Ed Sanders, James Dunn, and N. T. Wright. Each…
When Christ enjoins upon the young man the duty of following him (Mt. 19:23), he does not give a counsel, but a command to all in common because no one can have a hope of salvation unless he follows Christ (2 Pet. 2:21), although from a particular cause it is…
This short paper is not an attempt to provide a comprehensive analysis and defense of N. T. Wright, much less the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” as a whole. Indeed, Wright’s theological project has some failings and the New Perspective as a movement must be considered a mixed bag of…
Leviticus 1:3-13, Translation 3 If his Nearbringing is an Ascension from the herd, a perfect male shall he bring him near. To the forecourt of the Tent of Meeting he shall bring him near, for his acceptance before Yahweh. 4 And he shall lean his hand on the head of…
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In his Natural History of Religion, David Hume proposes an evolutionary progress from natural polytheism to more developed monotheism. This, he thinks, is the natural and virtually inevitable progress: “As far as writing or history reaches, mankind, in ancient times, appears universally to have been polytheists” and idolaters. It makes…
Protestant problematics about sacraments still run in the background of early modern debates about religion. In response to evidence of similarities between Jewish and “savage” Indian religion, some early modern thinkers argued that the ritual similarities were marginal to Judaism. Some thought of Jewish ceremonies as a kind of prophylactic…
Many scholars have concluded that the Jubilee legislation of Leviticus 25 is an idealized portrait of an institution that Israel never practiced. In a 2003 essay in Vetus Testamentum , Lee Casperson takes issue with this viewpoint: “There are extensive parallels in the ancient Near East, long predating the entry…
Leigh Trevaskis tries to suss out the rationale for sticking Leviticus 24 (menorah, showbread, blasphemy) between Leviticus 23 (Israel’s festival calendar) and Leviticus 25 (Jubilee). He proposes a symbolic solution to the puzzle. He observes that chapter 24 begins with a reverence to “light” (v. 2), alluding back to the…
Esther Lightcap Meek presents the most devastating little critiques of epistemological dualism I’ve ever read near the beginning of A Little Manual for Knowing . Epistemological dualism describes the way we “distinguish knowledge from beliefs, facts from values, reason from faith, theory from application, thought from emotion, mind from body,…
Halbertal ( On Sacrifice , 72-3) offers this fine analysis of the self-justificating moves of aggressors: “The mind can play complicated games, and among them is the accusation that an aggressor directs toward his victim for causing him to become violent, which all too easily turns into a justification for…
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