Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Protestant-Catholic relationship has hardly been an untroubled one. And yet, the possibilities for various layers of reconciliation are better then at any time since the original schism 500 years ago. One of the symbols for the church that is used in Scripture is the church as a household (Ephesians…
Despite the layers of wiping, covering, and ransoming during the Day of Recoverings, true unity still has not been achieved. Divorce is still possible; God still might leave his people. Thus the Day of Recoverings must be repeated every year. The perpetual expression of unity between God and man in…
The events of Leviticus 16 are commonly known as “The Day of Atonement,” from the Hebrew phrase yom hakippurim, in Leviticus 23:27. However, it would be more accurate to say, “The Day of Atonements,” [i] since the word is plural. The plurality primarily relates to 16:33, which states five different…
Mary Douglas, against the common notion that primitive religious rituals were illogical and random asserts, “The analysis of ritual symbolism cannot begin until we recognize ritual as an attempt to create and maintain a particular culture … Any culture is a series of structures which comprise social forms, values, cosmology,…
Jesus holds seven stars. They are the angels of the seven churches (Revelation 1:20). For ancient readers and hearers, "seven stars" would evoke a number of associations - the seven planets, the seven stars of Ursa Major, and the seven stars that make up the Pleiades. The last makes a…
When he first arrives in Harran, at Paddan-Aram, the home of Laban his uncle, Jacob sees a well. Wells are mentioned frequently in Genesis. Twice Hagar finds a well in the wilderness (Genesis 16:14; 21:19). Philistines seize Abraham’s well (21:22-34), and Abraham’s chief servant finds a wife for Isaac at…
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INTRODUCTION Once again Matthew records a series of three miracles, then a scene of a call to discipleship, and finally a description of the nature of Jesus’ ministry. The Jews begin to criticize Jesus, while the disciples wonder whom they are following. THE TEXT “Now when He got into a…
Matthew 8:15: And Jesus touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she arose and waited on Him. Our sermon text contains a clear Eucharistic prophecy. When Jesus sees the faith of the centurion, He marvels, and He observes that this is a sign of a trend. Gentiles like…
Our sermon text this morning begins a section of Matthew in which Jesus performs a series of miracles. He cleanses a leper, makes paralytics mobile, calms storms, gives sight to the blind and speech to the dumb. He casts out demons and raises the dead. Everywhere Jesus goes, life comes…
Jonathan Moore’s book focuses on John Preston, but he also deals with other English theologians who taught some form of universal atonement theology, including Ussher and John Davenant, the latter one of the English delegates to Dort. Preston combined particularist and universalist by distinguishing sharply between the scope of Christ’s…
From Moore’s book again, Perkins writing: “the raising up of Christ is . . . his actuall absolution from their sins, for whom he died; for even as the Father by delivering Christ to death, did in very deede condemne their sinnes imputed unto Christ, for whome he died; so…
William Perkins has been accused of being “addicted to adding the qualifying phrase ‘for the elect’ to universalist Biblical statements.” In his recent book on John Preston and English Hypothetical Universalism (Eerdmans), Jonathan Moore argues that this assessment is exaggerated. Moore lays out Perkins’s views on definite atonement thoroughly, yet…
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