Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…
At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…
We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…
Sandra Jacobs's The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…
Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…
Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…
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In a 1971 article, Ann Banfield writes, “If Mansfield is ‘modern, airy, and well-situated,’ the house at Sotherton, ‘built in Elizabeth’s time’ and ‘furnished in the taste of fifty years back,’ is ‘ill-placed,’ for ‘it stands in one of the lowest spots of the park.’ It is without the essential…
In an article in Studies in English Literature (2004), Michael Karounos notes that “The meaning of ordination was not restricted in 1814 to the meaning of assuming a religious office, nor, indeed, was that its primary definition. A glance at the OED demonstrates that trees, animals, and ideas may all…
In Book III of his poem “The Task,” the most popular poem of the late eighteenth century, William Cowper lamented how the lust for “improvement” has spoiled nature and the English character. Austen, who described Cowper as her favorite poet, might have had the poem open as she wrote Mansfield…
Brownson claims that baptism does not bring assurance in the sense of answering the question “How can I know if I really have true faith that relies on Christ alone?” That experience of assurance only comes through “the existential act of reliance upon God’s grace in Christ, rather than upon…
Brownson again, arguing that “In baptism, I am given a new identity, into which I am called to grow”: “When we are baptized into the name of Jesus, we are given a new name, the name of Christian. Names are curious things. We rarely choose them for ourselves; they are…
In The Promise of Baptism (Eerdmans, 2007), James Brownson describes faith as 1) acknowledging God’s goodness to me in particular, 2) accepting and receiving the gifts He offers, 3) trusting Him, and 4) being loyal to Him, clinging in allegiance to Him. He neatly ties this to baptism in a…
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