Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Rounding Out the Traditional Doctrine of Justification Justification and the Church The traditional Protestant doctrine of justification fails to fully hold together the soteriological (forgiveness of sins) and the ecclesiological (covenant membership). This is part of a larger problem, of course, namely, the dichotomizing of church and salvation. Biblically and…
John Piper’s book, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002) is, from any perspective, a passionate work. Nevertheless, I find I need to disagree with parts of it. The reason I do this is not because John Piper’s book does…
What follows is a handout for a Sunday School class I have taught recently at my church . Presbyterian doctrine teaches what the Bible says about God sovereign control over history and his unconditional choice (election) to bring some people to everlasting glory while allowing others to remain in unbelief…
“Covenantal Nomism” sounds like a description of tiny contract-loving creatures who live underground. But it is actually a recent term used to describe the pattern of religious belief and practice in first-century Palestinian Judaism. The idea is that God graciously establishes a structured relationship based on promises, a “covenant,” with…
What follows deals primarily with two essays, one by Dr. Douglas Kelly and the other by The Rev. Richard Phillips . My reason for writing this essay is that many people are confidently saying things about N. T. Wright that I believe are contrary to fact. I choose Dr. Kelly…
The Bible is often treated as a book of rules with directions for living. To some extent, that is true; but it is neither the whole truth nor the most important truth about the book. Ultimately, the Bible is a story about God and man and their reconciliation in Christ.…
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Reviewing two new books about the internet at TLS , Michael Saler sketches the religious ideology of Silicon Valley: “The ‘Valley’ is not merely a byword for technological innovation and economic growth: it is the lush seedbed for a new ideology of the twenty-first century, one that fills the void…
Registration for the very first Trinity House intensive class is now open. The course on How to Read the Bible will be taught by James Jordan and Peter Leithart at Trinity Presbyterian Church , Birmingham, Alabama, August 26-30. Registration ends on July 1. You can find more information about Trinity…
I have my world, but before I or my world existed there was the world. This distinction between my world and not-mine is, O’Donovan says ( Self, World, and Time: Volume 1: Ethics as Theology: An Induction ), what we mean by “the world’s objective truth ” (10). The truth…
In the newly published first volume of his Ethics as Theology, entitled Self, World, and Time: Volume 1: Ethics as Theology: An Induction , Oliver O’Donovan suggests that the moral life is not something we choose to enter but something we wake to: “Let us say, we awake to our…
There are stones, and then there are stones, says Tyconius ( The Book of Rules ). In Ezekiel, the king of Tyre is surrounded by precious stones, but “these words pertain both to the devil and to man. For these twelves tones as well as gold and silver and all…
In the The Book of Rules , Tyconius suggests that in his witness to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel represents “the whole body of the church” since “Daniel confounded the king of Babylon as a figure.” Through the Spirit, Daniel “brought the proud king to his knees to confess the one God by…
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