Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Reformed Doctrine Stated & Briefly Vindicated from Scripture THE REFORMED VIEW ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL PRESBYTERIAN DOCTRINE The contrast between Law and Gospel is often treated as if it were a uniquely Lutheran idea, but Reformed doctrine also uses such a formulation. In fact, the distinction is important to understanding…
According to N. T. Wright : By “the gospel” Paul does not mean “justification by faith” itself. He means the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord. To believe this message, to give believing allegiance to Jesus as Messiah and Lord, is to be justified in the present…
Imagine two strangers who happen to be standing on the same subway train; we’ll call one Joe and the other Larry. Joe accidentally steps on the Larry’s foot so that he, in a flash of pain, thinking Joe did it intentionally, resorts to name calling and says something about Joe’s…
Imagine being a small child at an orphanage. One day, one of your caretakers comes rushing to you as you play in the common yard. “I have great news!” she tells you, excitedly. “What is it?” you ask. “A wonderful family has adopted you. They’re at the courthouse right now…
The Westminster Standards, Repentance, & Pardon REPENTANCE ENTAILS ALL OF LIFE According the Westminster Divines, “repentance to life” is an “evangelical” (WCF 15.1) and “saving” (WLC #87) “grace”. By it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness…
Click HERE for an audio version of this article. For Part 2, click HERE . The ordination of women to the Christian ministry, specifically the pastoral office of overseeing worship and performing preaching and the Lord’s Supper, is a recent development in Church history. From the early church until the…
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“Civil society” typically refers to private and voluntary institutions distinct from both the bureaucracies of the nation-state and the economic institutions of the market. It includes “mediating institutions” like the family, the Moose Lodge, charities, churches, unions, the Chamber of Commerce, educational institutions, United Way, neighborhoods, softball teams, professional associations,…
Pulling together the important “content” of Rowan Williams’s profound, masterful 2008 study of Dostoevsky inevitably distorts, since much of the book consists of sensitive readings of Dostoevskian texts. Williams begins with a text, analyzing a confession from an 1854 letter: “if someone were to prove to me that Christ was…
It is often said that we come to worship to give and not to receive. That is a dangerous half-truth. Praise, thanks, adoration are all part of worship, of course, and God delights in our praise. But in worship as in all of life, we have nothing to give unless…
The consensus of modern critical scholarship is that the book assigned to Isaiah was in fact composed by several different hands. “Deutero-Isaiah” supposedly begins with Isaiah 40:1. There are many good reasons for rejecting this conclusion. Among these, the narrative pattern of chapters 36-39 is a neglected piece of evidence.…
James hooks the different sections of his epistle together by using the same or a similar word at the close of one section and the opening of the following section. James 1:1 ends with the word “greetings” (Greek, chairein ), and his first exhortation is to “consider it all joy…
In the introduction to What Hath God Wrought , his contribution to the Oxford History of the United States, Daniel Walker Howe quotes an 1850 Methodist women’s magazine’s ecstasies over the telegraph: “This noble invention is to be the means of extending civilization, republicanism, and Christianity over the earth. It…
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