Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…
How do covenant and election relate to one another? There are many issues of semantics that enter into this discussion and many issues of real substance, so we need to be careful. If we oversimplify, we can say that election relates to God’s eternal plan to save a people for…
Shortly after the Last Supper and before his final arrest, Jesus said these words to his remaining eleven faithful disciples: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit…
Was Caleb saved by faith or works? Caleb is just one of many thousands of Hebrews who entered the Promised Land after spending years in the wilderness being led by Moses. God had delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and gave them a law at Mount Sinai based on…
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5.7) So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of…
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6.1-3). Honor your father and your mother, that your…
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O’Donovan again, asking, What makes “public reason” reasonable? He states the premise that “rational communication is directed to ‘persuasion’ broadly understood, that is to say, it is concerned with communicating reasons for acting, reasons for believing.” These persuasions are nourished within a tradition, but, he insists, they are not “confined…
O’Donovan continues his article by asking in what sense pluralism’s public reason is public. Public and private necessitate one another, and “the private is defined negatively, by privation . . . by walling off, excluding, refusing entry. Private thought, domestic privacy, property, private association, and so on are those withheld…
In a 2008 essay in The Princeton Seminary Bulletin (since reprinted elsewhere), Oliver O’Donovan offers “Reflections on Pluralism.” He wonders at the outset why we add an “ism” to the word, and suggests that understanding “difference as plurality” reflects an anxiety about difference. Not all difference creates anxiety, but only…
1 Kings 10: When the queen of Sheba perceived the wisdom of Solomon, the house he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers, there was no more spirit in her. As Pastor Sumpter has said,…
Paul preaches “the mystery.” He wants the Colossians to be fully assured of the mystery. He is imprisoned because of the mystery. “The mystery” is the key to everything, concealed for a time but now revealed. The union of Jews and Gentiles was veiled in the Old Testament, now everyone…
Cur Deus Homo is typically viewed as the classic statement of the “satisfaction” theory of atonement. I think the accent of Anselm’s argument lies elsewhere. To be sure, satisfactio is a central term and satisfaction a central concept in the treatise. Anselm seems to use the term in much the…
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