Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…
At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…
We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…
Sandra Jacobs's The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…
Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…
Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…
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Lessing on Hamann: “His writings seem to be tests of manhood for those who claim to be polyhistorians. They truly require a little knowledge of everything.” This from John Betz’s After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary , fresh out from Wiley-Blackwell.
NT Wright explains the meaning of the exaltation of the Son (Philippians 2): “It is the affirmation, by God the Father, that the incarnation and death of Jesus really was the revelation of the divine love in action. In giving to Jesus the title kurios , and in granting him…
The numerological structure of Philippians 2:1-2 is intriguingly complex. Verse 1 is explicitly structured by four conditional clauses, each introduced by “if” ( ei ). But this fourfold structure is crossed by a list of five nouns: paraklesis , persuasive address ( paramuthion ), koinonia , bowels, innards. And the…
During the 1870s, Bismarck’s Germany embarked on a legislative program that aimed among other things at secularizing education and resulted in a religiously pluralist Germany. This might look like progress in liberty and toleration, but the whole process was driven by anti-Catholic hatred and prejudice, and by fear about clerical…
Sanders’s work on Jesus is flawed by an odd adherence to conclusions the premises of which he rejects. In Jesus and Judaism he concludes that Jesus expected some kind of cataclysmic intervention by God in the future, yet also insists that he is suspending judgment about the form of intervention…
In a web article examining NT Wright’s arguments regarding Philippians 2:6, Dennis Burk writes, “If harpagmov be understood according to the above analysis, then Christ is said not to have snatched at or grasped for equality with God. Though he was himself true deity existing in the form of God…
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