Source
Another Police Officer Was Murdered Today
Author Archives: R. Scott Clark
Strangers And Aliens (21d): Be Not Surprised By Fiery Trials (1 Peter 4:12–19)
We live in the season or epoch (καιρὸς) of redemptive history, after the ascension and before the return of Christ, in which, from time to time, we face both informal and formal persecution for the sake of Christ. When Peter’s words might be understood to say, “For this is the season for judgment (κρίμα) to begin (ἄρξασθαι) from (ἀπὸ) God’s house…”. As Johnson notes, this is the pattern in Malachi. We might see also the whole history of national Israel from the beginning of the national covenant to its dissolution in the exile. The Lord repeatedly entered into judgment with his people and he began with them before he commissioned his (then) national people to commence holy war against the surrounding nations. These judgments were acts of purification of his people, which gets us back to the language of vs.12 above. The fire upon God’s house (following Johnson) is the fire of purification, of sanctification through suffering. Continue reading →
When A Society Turns To Skepticism
No amount of force, or gun-control legislation, is going to fix a society where there is no longer a sense that we have law rooted in truth, which every citizen, in every station of life, respects and takes seriously. —Star Parker
U. S. Senator Tim Scott On Solutions To The American Racial Crisis
Biblical, Ecumenical Christian Doctrines Are Not Adiaphora
Rachel Miller writes: “I hope that those who have read and recommend Dr. Grudem’s Systematic Theology will go back and reconsider what is being taught.” Continue reading →
The Kind Of Conversation We Should Be Having
Glenn Loury And John McWhorter On Defining Racism
(HT: Daniel Aims)
United States Senator Tim Scott On Driving While Black
A Sobering Testimony
Strangers And Aliens (21c): Be Not Surprised By Fiery Trials (1 Peter 4:12–19)
12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when . . . Continue reading →
Barth V. The Barthians On The Central Dogma Reading Of Calvin
Unlike many older Calvin scholars, then, I would not try to understand Calvin terms of a single thesis in the Institutes such as the glory of God, predestination, providence, or meditating on the future life, then using this as a master principle . . . Continue reading →
Resources On Continuing Revelation
Since the Second Great Awakening, in the 19th century, modern evangelical theology, piety, and practice has come to be dominated by various species of what are really expressions of the original Anabaptist theology, piety, and practice in the sixteenth century. They were . . . Continue reading →
Audio: How Not To Be A Heretic
You and I are not the first ones to read the Bible. Christians as individuals and the church as a corporation has been hearing, meditating upon, and reading God’s Word for its entire history. One of the principal fruits of that corporate . . . Continue reading →
Coming Soon: Theodore Beza On The Lord’s Supper
Theodore Beza lived from 1519 until 1605. This means that he was a boy when the Reformation occurred and was nearing his death as the controversy between Arminius (whom Beza taught in Geneva) and the Reformed churches was developing. In between, he . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Student To Pastor To Pastor-Teacher
Office Hours usually focuses on the process, i.e., on what the faculty says to the students and to others about what scripture says and what it means. That is as it should be because that is what we do at Westminster Seminary . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Birthday 2016: Resources For Understanding Calvin
John Calvin was born on this date, 10 July 1509. He died in 1564. He was author of many volumes (including a massive Bible commentary, hundreds of personal letters, and public treatises), most famous of which is his Institutes of the Christian . . . Continue reading →
Maybe It Comes Down To Method?
We understand that some strands of Baptist and evangelical life have not typically learned the habit of creedal thinking but have tended to emphasize independent Biblicism and personal exegesis. Perhaps that lies at the root of much of this dispute. But this . . . Continue reading →
Function And Subsistence Are Distinct Categories
Both the unity of the divine essence and the distinction of the persons within that essence are matters of ontology, of the divine being. Some, like Wollebius, define the divine persons as “the essence of God, with a certain manner of subsisting” . . . Continue reading →
Bakersfield School Board Member Resigns:What It Means
As I considered the many requests I became increasingly dogged by the concern that staying on the board would be giving Christian parents false hope. Why? I do not believe this battle can be won at the school board level. It is . . . Continue reading →
Iowa Civil Rights Commission Asserts Authority To Determine Christian Faith And Practice
An Existential Threat To Religious Liberty
DOES THIS LAW APPLY TO CHURCHES? Sometimes. Iowa law provides that these protections do not apply to religious institutions with respect to any religion-based qualifications when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose. Where qualifications are not related to . . . Continue reading →
Marshall: Meditate Before You Rush Into Law Keeping
This is an advertisement very needful; because many are apt to skip over the lesson concerning the means (that will fill up this whole treatise) as superfluous and useless. When once they know the nature and excellency of the duties of the . . . Continue reading →
The Wilsonian Legacy: Too Big To Jail
This is the Wilsonian legacy, finally achieved after a century of waiting: the Big Man (or Woman), unanswerable to the law, approved by the population without regard to equality under the law. We now elect our dictators. And they are unanswerable to . . . Continue reading →