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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Peter Lombard argued (Book 1, distinction 17 of the Sentences ) that the Spirit is both the love by which God loves us and the origin of the love by which we love Him: “the Holy Spirit is the Love [amor] of the Father and the Son, by which They…
In another chapter of the same book, Larsen argues that British secularization promoted by Dissenters within England, and on specifically theological grounds. According to the “Protestant Dissenters’ Catechism” (published 1772, by Samuel Palmer), a church is “a congregation, or voluntary soceity of Christians, who meet together to attend gospel ordinances…
In his book Contested Christianity (Baylor, 2004), Wheaton historian Timothy Larsen examines the reception of DF Strauss’s Life of Jesus in England. He suggests that only Darwin’s Origin of Species rivals Strauss’s book as a challenge to orthodoxy in Victorian England. Yet, the book’s impact had less to do with…
In response to my comments about the “road to Rome” charge, Eric Enlow of Handong International Law School writes: “I would connect sacramentalism with the road to Rome for an empirical reason. The individuals that I have known who have been most interested in sacramentalism have converted to Roman Catholicism.…
INTRODUCTION Manasseh undergoes a demonic “repentance”: Verse 3 says “he turned, he built,” using the Hebrew verb that normally designates repentance (“turn”). He “repents” of Hezekiah’s reforms. Because of this, the Lord determines to repeat in Jerusalem what he did in Shiloh (v. 12; cf. 1 Samuel 3:11; Jeremiah 19:3).…
2 Kings 20:8-11: Now Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day? And Isaiah said, This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord…
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