Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
First John 5.16-17: If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life–to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for…
A few years back I read Lesslie Newbigin’s little book Truth and Authority in Modernity . 1 I was particularly impressed with his argument in chapter 2 “The Mediation of Divine Authority.” Now, maybe this is old hat to many of you, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it…
Baptism is not Christian circumcision. There’s a lot of loose talk to that effect in Presbyterian circles; but it’s not accurate. The old world rite of circumcision was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Baptism unites us to Christ and therefore makes us participate in the circumcision of…
In recent years I’ve observed a number of Reformed-type churches trying to institute corporate handraising in certain sung parts of worship. This often does not seem to work very well. Some people don’t do it. Some do it half-way. Some do it with one hand. Some dramatically stretch to the…
Most modern scholars recognize that behind Arius’s campaign to differentiate Jesus from God was the Hellenistic theological conviction that the high God cannot suffer. Rowan Williams argues that Arius had the right idea about divine suffering, but the wrong idea of God, which “puts the unavoidable question of what the…
Charismatics have been much maligned for constantly “praising the Lord.” They would say if you hit your finger with a hammer, you should instantly say, “Thank you Jesus that You let me hit my finger…” This of course, as we all know, is stupid. There was once a lady who…
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In Numbers 10, Yahweh instructs Moses to make two silver trumpets. They have several uses. 1) If both are blow, the people assemble at the door of the tent (v. 3). 2) A single blast is a summons only to the leaders (v. 4). 3) A second blast is an…
Anthony Milton recounts ( Catholic and Reformed ) the debates within the seventeenth-century church of England concerning the status of the Catholic church. It was a tricky question. If Anglican divines were too hard on the Catholic church, they provided ammunition for dissenting groups who suggested that the semi-reformed church…
Brad Gregory argues in his Unintended Reformation that it is a historical prejudice to treat “magisterial” Protestantism, which relied on the support of state power as “normative” Protestantism. Even now, when confessional historiography has given way to new paradigms of Reformation scholarship, most attention is paid to the magisterial Reformers.…
What appears to be Paul’s first recorded statement on justification comes in Acts 13, in a sermon at Pisidian Antioch. He briefly recounts the history of Israel, concluding with the resurrection that the promise of forgiveness and justification. Verse 39 (v. 38 in the Greek text) states that “through Him…
The Princeton Proposal on Christian Unity, published in 2003 as In One Body Through the Cross has some bracing passages on the connection of unity and mission. The authors insist that the common life of the church is not merely a means for mission, but an “essential goal of the…
The Princeton Proposal (40-1) observes a shift in the basis and nature of division from the Reformation to the present. Initially, disputes “took the form of argumentative exegesis of Holy Scripture, in which the great Christian teachers and witnesses of the past were called to give testimony.” As divisions unfolded,…
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