Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The “second Reformation” introduced Reformed liturgy and teaching into Lutheran Germany. This was seen by some as a continuation of the Reformation and a purgation of Catholic remnants. The effort to carry on “further reformation” led to disputes with Lutherans. As Bodo Nischan has put it, the hottest debate in…
In J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century , Tom Shippey observes that Bilbo is a member of the middle class, a bourgeois. Bilbo does not have any servants, but his hole is “the home of a member of the Victorian upper-middle class of Tolkien’s nineteenth-century youth, full of…
Idolatry has deprived Israel of her senses. This was one of the early messages to Isaiah (Isaiah 6). Yahweh sent him out to a people who had been deprived of their senses because of their commitment to idols. They become like the idols they serve. They still have eyes, but…
In the current climate of Trinitarian discussion concerning personhood, it's good to reach back to David Bentley Hart's treatment of the subject in his wonderful Beauty of the Infinite . Hart addresses the dangers of misreading Rahner’s rule, namely, the danger of dissolving the ontological Trinity into the economic. In…
Chris Kou is the oldest son of Chinese immigrants. Chris and his brothers run a branding and marketing business, Imagineering, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. In his spare time, he takes online courses from Reformed Theological Seminary, and aspires to be a pastor. Chris is also one of our…
The following was delivered as the Solemn Charge and Exhortation to Theopolis students beginning the Easter term course on Architecture and Liturgical Space . As we will be reminded repeatedly throughout the week, the Bible has a lot to say about building and buildings. Long stretches of Exodus, Kings, Chronicles,…
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On page 159 of her extraordinary Rituals of Spontaneity , Lori Branch writes an “if” as an “id.”
In May 1757, Christopher Smart, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, renowned poet, writer for John Newbery, was involuntarily incarcerated in a London madhouse, where he spent the next seven years. His crime: Spontaneous public prayer, which arose from his conviction that it was a crime to resist the impulse to…
John says in 1 John 5:15: “if we know he hears, we know we have. His hearing and our having are identified. As soon as God hears, we have; as soon as God hears, He gives. There is no lapse between request and gift. There is a time lapse between…
We are baptized, Jesus said, into the “name” of the Triune God. John says that we also “believe into the name” (1 John 5:13). Among other things, baptism is a road sign pointing faith in the right direction, toward the “name” of God. As such, baptism’s efficacy continues beyond the…
The doctrine of the Trinity is the pre-condition for forgiveness. Consider: “If a man sins against another man, God will mediate for him; but if man sins against God, who can intercede for Him” (1 Samuel 2:25). God stands between man and man, and can reconcile; but who stands between…
John says, “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he will ask and he will give life” (1 John 5:16). Some commentators suggest a change of subject in the main clause: The brother “asks” but God “gives life.” That’s grammatically awkward, and Stott bites the bullet…
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