Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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Stanley Kurtz of the EPPC has a lengthy essay review of Philip Carl Salzman’s Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (Humanity Press) in the April 14 issue of The Weekly Standard . The book comes with the endorsement of Daniel Pipes, who calls it “one of the handful of…
INTRODUCTION In the early chapters of Matthew, Jesus is shown as the new Moses and the new Israel. The focus is shifting in chapter 12. Jesus is the “son of David” (v. 23), a warrior confronting Satan’s kingdom, and greater than Solomon (v. 42). In the following chapter, He takes…
Matthew 12:33 Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees here for being bad trees and producing bad fruit. Their bad fruit is primarily their words –…
Matthew 12:28: if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. In many historic baptismal rites, there is a moment of exorcism. The candidate for baptism is asked if he renounces the devil and all his works, and all his…
We don’t quite know what to do with all the talk of demons and devils in the New Testament, and we often adopt an implicitly secular understanding of the world. We don’t take much account of demonic influence on human life. We think psychologists and sociologists can explain most anything,…
“Whatsoever comes to pass, comes to pass by the will and eternal decree of God.” The Westminster Confession? Nope; Spinoza. Yet, the argument where this appears is incoherent. Spinoza claims that the Bible’s attribution of miraculous events to God is an accommodation to pre-existing opinion (he somehow has extra-biblical access…
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