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.…
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Isaiah 9 describes not only a dawn, but the dawn of victory. With the light comes a multiplication of the nation, a repopulation of the land, gladness like the gladness of harvest (v. 3). This gladness is the result of a deliverance, a new exodus that will deliver Israel from…
Matthew says that Jesus’ residence in Capernaum fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 9 about the dawning in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. There are several aspects to this. 1) Isaiah 9 comes at the end of a prophecy concerning the Aramean crisis in Judah. Rezin of Aram and Pekah…
It’s no wonder that the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the region of Galilee, was considered a place of darkness. Towns had been sold to the Gentile Hiram, and apparently pronounced worthless (1 Kings 9). This region was the first to go into exile (2 Kings 15:29), and the Assyrians…
Though Austen lived almost two decades into the nineteenth century, she is usually characterized as a writer of the eighteenth. Her aesthetic and tastes were set in stone by 1800 (when she was 25), and she was untouched by romanticism. Indeed, she is often read as an anti-Romantic writer. The…
Gabrielle White offers an abolitionist reading of Austen’s work, and of Emma specifically. Part of the evidence is circumstantial. Some of Austen’s best-loved writers favored not only the abolition of the slave trade (which happened in 1807) but also the abolition of chattel slavery in British colonies (which didn’t happen…
Ellen Belton points out that in the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice , “Elizabeth and Darcy (Colin Firth) are hardly ever frames together until well into the second half of the film, and when they are shown in the same shot, the effect is to emphasize the obstacles…
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