Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the first installment of this essay, I offered the following chiastic outline of 1 Timothy: A. 1:1-2. Paul greets Timothy as a true child of the Faith, and blesses with grace, mercy, and peace. B. 1:3-7. Timothy is urged to command against heresy. C. 1:8-11. The reason the Law…
In the Bible, a memorial is something that brings God's promises and previous actions to mind, so that He can do them again. The rainbow is the model, set in heaven so that Yahweh remembers the covenant He makes with Noah (Genesis 9:13-15). God is light and dwells in a…
The First Epistle to Timothy fits neatly in the context of what King Jesus and the church are doing in the gospels, in Acts, Revelation, and all of the Apostolic Age in between. Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him in his work as a pastor in the “latter days,”…
I have been pastoring Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, Illinois since 1999. We are members of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), but have been practicing catholicity for many years, both personally and corporately. I’ve always believed that the Church of Jesus Christ is much more than the local…
Ecumenism is easy to talk about. It’s doing something to promote it that’s the problem. As a pastor in a town with churches of different denominations, all of whom love their doctrinal distinctions and are jealous to defend them whenever they perceive the slightest challenge, how can you be ecumenical…
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Dale Dykema of Covenant Home Curriculum writes: “I have just finished reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali Moslem woman converted to Dutch Humanism. Her efforts to expose the violence of Islam, especially its oppression of women is noteworthy. Of particular interest to me was how this woman discovered…
The liberal state is a free state, but it’s clear from Spinoza that freedom in a liberal state is limited to unlimited freedom of thought and speech. Action is controlled by the state, including religious action: “God has no special kingdom among men except in so far as He reigns…
The genealogy is pretty clear: Pietist-leaning Collegiants, with affinities to the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, influence the theological and political view of Spinoza, leading him to write a treatise where he defends two central Anabaptist/Pietist clams: a) he attacks the tyranny of the letter and b) he argues for…
Another from Hatzfeld: “The Saturday after the [President’s] plan crash was the usual choir rehearsal day at the church in Kibungo. We sang hymns in good feeling with our Tutsi compatriots, our voices still blending in chorus. On Sunday morning we returned at the appointed hour for mass; they did…
In his harrowing book on the Rwandan killers of 1994, Jean Hatzfeld quotes one young man: “Suddenly Hutus of every kind were patriotic brothers without any partisan discord. We were through playing around with political words. We were no longer in our each-to-his-won mood. We were doing a job to…
According to Emmanuel Kolini and Peter Holmes ( Christ Walks Where Evil Reigned ), the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda were originally ethnically indistinguishable. Prior to colonialization, the difference was “vocational,” social and economic. Tutsis were cattle herders, Hutus farmers; Tutsis were Abel, Hutus Cain. When the Belgians took over,…
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