Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Rounding Out the Traditional Doctrine of Justification Justification and the Church The traditional Protestant doctrine of justification fails to fully hold together the soteriological (forgiveness of sins) and the ecclesiological (covenant membership). This is part of a larger problem, of course, namely, the dichotomizing of church and salvation. Biblically and…
John Piper’s book, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002) is, from any perspective, a passionate work. Nevertheless, I find I need to disagree with parts of it. The reason I do this is not because John Piper’s book does…
What follows is a handout for a Sunday School class I have taught recently at my church . Presbyterian doctrine teaches what the Bible says about God sovereign control over history and his unconditional choice (election) to bring some people to everlasting glory while allowing others to remain in unbelief…
“Covenantal Nomism” sounds like a description of tiny contract-loving creatures who live underground. But it is actually a recent term used to describe the pattern of religious belief and practice in first-century Palestinian Judaism. The idea is that God graciously establishes a structured relationship based on promises, a “covenant,” with…
What follows deals primarily with two essays, one by Dr. Douglas Kelly and the other by The Rev. Richard Phillips . My reason for writing this essay is that many people are confidently saying things about N. T. Wright that I believe are contrary to fact. I choose Dr. Kelly…
The Bible is often treated as a book of rules with directions for living. To some extent, that is true; but it is neither the whole truth nor the most important truth about the book. Ultimately, the Bible is a story about God and man and their reconciliation in Christ.…
Showing page 234 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
Jesus is described twice in Revelation as the “root of David” (5:5; 22:16). “Son of David” or “Seed of David” makes sense; Jesus comes from the Davidic line. But Jesus is not only the fruit, but the root of the Davidic house. He is the original Anointed One before who…
In a 1984 JBL article, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon suggested that the boat in Mark’s gospel represents a “mediator” between sea and land, and pointed out that Jesus treats the sea as if it were land (walking on it, showing no concern for the unsteadiness of the waves, etc.). If we…
PROVERBS 21:20 The verse could be translated, more woodenly, as “Stores desired and oil in the habitation of the wise; but the foolish Adam swallows it.” The verse contrasts the conduct of the wise and of the foolish, and the basic contrast is between the wise man who has things…
Well, a bit of looking pays off. One Justin Champion has written a study of priestcraft in early Enlightenment England, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken (Cambridge 1992), which is available in its entirety online at: http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/catalogue/viewcat.php?id=OTHE00029. Chapter 5 begins with a paragraph that links the attacks on priestcraft with the…
Writing of Spinoza, Jonathan Israel ( Radical Enlightenment ) notes that Spinoza outlines “the concept of priestcraft as a system of organized imposture and deception, rooted in credulousness and superstitution, which loomed so large in the subsequent history of the Enlightenment and was to receive massive amplification in the books…
Not of the Hitchens-Dawkins-Harris variety, but of the seventeenth century variety. The four figures most often attacked for formulating a thoroughgoing atheistic perspective were Spinoza (for his biblical work as well as his metaphysics), Hobbes, La Peyrere (author of Pre-Adamites ), and Lodewijk Meyer (author of Philosophia Scripturae Interpres ).…
Showing page 1523 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
