Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Having spent time in a number of different kinds of churches/denominations over the years, it has been my observation that in every group there are those with a healthy catholic attitude toward other Christians and also those with a proud and condescending attitude toward others who call themselves Christians. If…
The BHrethren might be interested in this post I wrote on my personal blog which disagrees with John Gerstner’s understanding on the Church . Amid all the discussion of eschatology and hypercalvinism and how the visible church may properly be called the body of Christ, I completely overlooked how Gerstner’s…
How does one become a true judge? There are two trees in the Garden. One must first eat of the Tree of Life, which is purely a tree of grace, a gift. This is a tree that one has done nothing to deserve, and one must eat perhaps for a…
I just put up that first essay (#29 in a series) because I’d made some math goofs in the version mailed out, and I thought some other people would be interested. If this kind of study does not interest you, that’s fine. The Kingdom is a big place. Also, as…
. . . and the whole thing gets muddled. The words we traditionally use to translate Hebrew terms in the “sacrificial” system are confusing and often convey the wrong ideas. If we are going to understand Leviticus and the old world system of sacrifices and offerings, the first thing we…
I’ll start things off here. This year I’m preaching through the Gospel according to St. Luke. Over the past ten years I’ve preached through the Gospel according to St. Mark, St. John, and St. Matthew (in that order) in our morning services at Providence. It’s been eye-opening for me; and…
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The late John Webster offers this statement about the relationship between Scripture and “dogmatic reasoning” about creation ( Christian Dogmatics , 134–5): Dogmatic reasoning is a further act of following in which, directed by the prophetic testimony and with the aid of the Spirit's sanctifying grace, theological reason endeavors to…
A nthony Kronman begins his monumental Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan with several chapters on gratitude and its shifting fortunes in Western culture. He describes the shift from a gratitude-based organization of social life to a rights-based society. Gratitude assumes that social goods come by gift, on which we have…
A haz of Judah didn't dismantle the temple, but he might as well have done. He cut up the utensils of temple worship, perhaps including the musical instruments used by the Levites (2 Chronicles 28:24). He closed the doors (28:24), which meant that the various rites of the temple ceased—lamps…
R obert Emmons's study of the “new science of gratitude” ( Thanks! ) begins with a discussion of what gratitude is and implies. To say thanks is to say “yes to life. We affirm that all things taken together, life is good and has elements that make it worth living.…
M any Reformed theologians have taught that redemption in history unfolds from a “covenant of redemption” ( pactum salutis ) between the Father and Son. As Francis Turretin defined it, the pact between the Father and the Son contains the will of the Father giving the Son as lytroten (Redeemer…
L utheran Pastor James Prothro generously allowed me to see an advance manuscript of his forthcoming Both Judge and Justifier: Biblical Legal Language and the Act of Justifying in Paul (WUNT II; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), a revision of his Cambridge doctoral dissertation (see my summary of one of his articles…
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