Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
While I think Zacharias Ursinus’ thinking would be profitable to consider, I am not recording his reflections in order for readers to come to agreement with his position as a whole. Rather, my interest is twofold. First, I think the way the Heidelberg Catechisms is used as a “proof” of…
On this question Hebrews 10 is quite clear and really needs no additional argument. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume…
Not all readers of this essay letter may be aware of it, but a tempest has been brewing in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a tempest created by the liberal party in that denomination. It came about this way. In January 2002, a Pastor’s Conference on covenant theology was…
Once upon a time there was such a thing as Calvinistic thought. It existed when I was younger, but seems to have largely disappeared in recent years. But let me elaborate. When I became a Calvinist, back in 1970, I bought a bunch of books. Over the next few years,…
CHRIST THE PREACHER How Ephesians Shows Us Why Preaching is Essential to Salvation & Sanctification Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a…
Tracking the informal shifts in Protestant opinion regarding Baptism can be a difficult business. For example, in 1849 Anglican clergyman William Goode published his defense of Evangelicalism against the Anglo-Catholics under the title, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of…
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Jim Rogers of Texas A&M responds to my posts about liberalism, where I quoted a couple of passages from a recent essay by John Milbank. Rogers writes: “I do think that there is probably a liberal anthropology that can be criticized in a way similar to Milbank. But sometimes I…
When Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven” times, He is only alluding to the climax of God’s dealings with Israel that Daniel prophesied; he is He is also is alluding to Lamech, who threatened to avenge himself “seventy-sevenfold” (Genesis 4:22-23). Lamech was the descendant of Cain. Cain was…
In the first year of Darius, Daniel was studying the book of Jeremiah’s prophecies when he came upon the prophecy that Israel would be released from captivity after 70 years. The 70th year of exile was coming, and so Daniel began fasting in sackcloth and ashes, and be began confessing…
Frederick Beiser’s ( Fate of Reason ) account of Hamann is a mess. He gets the history right (so far as I know it), but his summary of Hamann’s thought is not only mistaken; it’s incoherent. For Hamann, Beiser says, “faith is an immediate experience,” like sense experience, but on…
Hamann does believe, as many postmoderns do, that we have no access to reality without language. But for Hamann this does not mean that we suffer “linguistic claustropobia,” or “outsidelessness.” Dickson again: “the fact that perceiving and understanding are inseparable from speaking is commonsensical; one no more need despair over…
Hamann says that the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation does not, despite its apparent attention to the human author, really honor the author. This is because historical-critical interpretation is “castrated,” removing all passion and kerygmatic intention. Dickson writes, “The desires and kerygmatic intentions of the biblical authors are appreciated, and…
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