Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Camping’s Attempted Substantiation Camping attempts to justify his hypothesis with several lines of argument, all of which are erroneous. 1. Gaps in Genealogies He first mentions the fact that in some of the "begatitudes" of the Bible, generations are left out for some reason or other. Matthew 1:8 and 11,…
I am often asked why I am not an Episcopalian, since I like liturgy so much. My answer is that if I had a call to serve in Episcopal circles, I would certainly entertain it. When I have looked into such groups as the Reformed Episcopal Church, however, I have…
For Part 1, click HERE . Now, what does this mean? Are we to believe that Adam was supposed to earn "merits" before God apart from faith ? Surely nobody wants to maintain this. The traditional explainers of the covenant of works always try to nuance their theology so as…
This issue of Biblical Chronology begins a second series of studies. The first series, Vols. I:1–V:4, concerned the chronology of the Bible itself. We saw, first, that the Bible is indeed concerned with chronology, contains much chronological information, and that the chronology in the Bible is complete from creation to…
David A. Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). A thorough reevaluation of the federal theology is desperately needed today. John Murray, in his introduction to The Covenant of Grace (1953) appropriately reminds us that it is of the essence…
An "essay" is a foray into a topic. It is not the last word. I hope that this essay or foray is a helpful word. This essay is designed as brief and suggestive. The doctrine of the covenant of works finds expression in the Westminster Standards, where it is also…
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It’s terribly hard, Seneca thinks, for a beneficiary to escape the debt of gratitude he owes. The benefactor goes first, and his gift is gratuitous, not a response to a prior gift. The recipient can only catch up if he outstrips the original gift ( On Benefits (The Complete Works…
Christian critics of just war theory sometimes point out that the tradition originates not with Christian thinkers but with pagans, Romans like Cicero. True enough, says James Brundage in his contribution to The Holy War (p. 102), but the Christians who took up the Roman theory modified it. “In Roman…
Joel 2:18: Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and will have pity on His people. Few books of the Bible portray as bleak a wasteland as Joel. A locust plague leaves the land desolate. A fire consumes everything green: “The land is like the garden of Eden…
Psalm 72:6-7: May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon is no more. The Spirit is like water from heaven. Judah is a wasteland “until the Spirit is…
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist – all were sons of barren women. God makes the barren woman a joyful mother of children. But He does more: He makes those born from the barren the best. He does the same with the land. When the patriarchs first enter…
Psalm 49 is a Psalm of wisdom, a parable and riddle (vv. 3-4). Like other wisdom Psalms, it addresses the question of the prosperity of the wicked - the ancient Israelite version of the problem of evil (vv. 5-6). Being wise when you see the wicked prosper means seeing the…
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