Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Your first born is a novelty. Everything seems special and unique. No one’s child is like yours. Then, over time, you begin to make mistakes. Some strategies don’t work on the additional personalities born into your family, or they simply don’t scale from a practical perspective. With maturity, you realize…
Could Jesus have sinned? Before answering the question, it's best to run through a couple of qualifiers. First, scripture clearly teaches He did not sin. Second, I realize the seeming futility when discussing hypothetical situations. The question of the peccability of Jesus, or Jesus's capacity to sin, is in reality,…
The first time I saw the inside of a prison was in 1999; I was 16. I hadn’t knocked over a fruit stand or been caught stealing hubcaps, I was just an unsuspecting teenager playing piano for a Louisiana gospel group. One Wednesday evening in October, my pastor and leader…
The act of naming carries a lot of weight in the Bible. Naming denotes authority and possession; the namer signifying that he understands the thing named, and therefore possesses the requisite wisdom to rule over it. God set the stage for naming when he named the domains during the first…
This short essay makes an obvious point: Church growth is a matter of the rate of entry into a church relative to the rate of exit from that church. Perhaps church growth literature has long recognized that fact. Yet given the greater focus in church – at least in my…
If you’ve not yet heard of Aaron Renn’s three worlds framework , here’s the quick version: once upon a time, being a Christian was a net social good in American society. Whatever was going on behind the scenes in elite institutions, the general rank-and-file perception of Christianity was positive. That…
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In a 2003 article in the Harvard Theological Review , Lori Peterson argues that “Schleiermacher, while criticizing Chalcedon for its supposed inconsistencies, nevertheless forges a Christology that has strong ‘Antiochene’ and ‘Alexandrian’ elements within it.” Specifically, “Schleiermacher’s Christology continues the ‘Antiochene’ tradition of protecting the absolute integrity of Jesus’ human…
Isaiah 54:11: O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold I will set your stones in antimony, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. When Yahweh rebuilds Jerusalem, He promises to make the city glorious. Her original stones were impressive, but the new Jerusalem will be built with sapphires,…
“Epiphany” means “manifestation,” and during this season of the church year we commemorate Jesus’ manifestation to the magi, the firstfruits of the Gentiles. Epiphany announces that Jesus is King of all nations. As Head of all things, Jesus is your Head. By manifesting Jesus as King, Epiphany also calls you…
My friend, Pastor Mike Kelly, who serves as Director of the NorthWest Church Planting Network of the PCA, offered this reflection after reading my piece on martyrdom in the current issue of First Things: “As I’ve watched so many urban ‘hipster-gelical’ Christians try to be part of this City and…
A couple more passages from Coloe’s very rich article. She notes that Pilate’s inscription on the cross identifies Jesus not as “a” but as “the” Nazarene. In John, Nazareth is barely mentioned (cf. 1:45-46), and suggests that Pilate’s titlon alludes to Isaiah 11’s prediction of a Messianic Branch ( netser…
“In my Father’s house are many mansions ( mone ),” Jesus says (John 14:2). It’s normally taken as a reference to a mansion in the sky. Mary Coloe ( Interpretation , 2009) disagrees. She points out that the chapter repeatedly uses the verb form of “dwelling” ( meno ), always…
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