Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Camping’s Attempted Substantiation Camping attempts to justify his hypothesis with several lines of argument, all of which are erroneous. 1. Gaps in Genealogies He first mentions the fact that in some of the "begatitudes" of the Bible, generations are left out for some reason or other. Matthew 1:8 and 11,…
I am often asked why I am not an Episcopalian, since I like liturgy so much. My answer is that if I had a call to serve in Episcopal circles, I would certainly entertain it. When I have looked into such groups as the Reformed Episcopal Church, however, I have…
For Part 1, click HERE . Now, what does this mean? Are we to believe that Adam was supposed to earn "merits" before God apart from faith ? Surely nobody wants to maintain this. The traditional explainers of the covenant of works always try to nuance their theology so as…
This issue of Biblical Chronology begins a second series of studies. The first series, Vols. I:1–V:4, concerned the chronology of the Bible itself. We saw, first, that the Bible is indeed concerned with chronology, contains much chronological information, and that the chronology in the Bible is complete from creation to…
David A. Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). A thorough reevaluation of the federal theology is desperately needed today. John Murray, in his introduction to The Covenant of Grace (1953) appropriately reminds us that it is of the essence…
An "essay" is a foray into a topic. It is not the last word. I hope that this essay or foray is a helpful word. This essay is designed as brief and suggestive. The doctrine of the covenant of works finds expression in the Westminster Standards, where it is also…
Showing page 284 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
After His baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and to be tempted by the devil for forty days and nights. The first temptation concerned food. Jesus was the new Adam, facing a food test not in a garden but in the wilderness. Jesus was the new Israel, hungering…
Mitt Romney bowed out before he embarrassed himself with further losses. He had no chance, and his exit is a bow to the inevitable. But give him his due: While Clinton and Obama spend millions fighting each other over the next few months, Romney has given McCain time to raise…
In a recent article on Ruth 1:16-17 in CBQ , Mark Smith comments on the relation between covenantal and familial terminology in Ruth and elsewhere. Even when covenants have political dimensions, as in international treaties, they are fundamentally mechanisms for extending kin ties beyond immediate blood relations. Smith writes: “A…
Ruth begins with death - the death of the land in famine, the death of exile, the death of Elimelech, the death of Naomi’s sons, the death of Naomi’s future. Naomi goes out full, and comes back empty. Ruth 1 is a perfect tragic story, a story of endings and…
Hazlitt defends Helena’s ( All’s Well ) virtue in a gentlemanlike way: “The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous…
Abimelech gains the support of the Shechemites by emphasizing his kinship through his mother - “I am your bone and your flesh” (Judges 9:2). The Shechemites resonate to the rhetoric: “He is our brother,” they say (9:3). It’s not a stable partnership. Kinship isn’t a sound foundation for kingship, at…
Showing page 1571 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
