Earlier this summer (Summer ends 21 September 2013) the good folks of the Associated Presbyterian Church invited me to contribute an essay on worship to the denominational magazine, APC News. It appeared as “Worship Matters” in APC News, 160 (July/August 2013), 5–9. It’s . . . Continue reading →
One of the casualties of the West’s cultural shift from Christian theism to Deism, and from that to late modern subjectivism (and neo-paganism) is the death of the Christian work ethic. The act of work has been emptied of its intrinsic value. . . . Continue reading →
When we’re at odds with another person sometimes things come to such a state that the only thing for it is a go-between, someone who is trusted by both parties. This is true for relations between God and humans. We often look . . . Continue reading →
Caution: This video uses a word that starts with kick and ends with an s. If you don’t want to hear this word then don’t watch the video (or mute the sound but that would pretty much ruin it since there is . . . Continue reading →
In the conventional story of the 1925 Scopes Trial, popularized in the 1960 play and film, Inherit the Wind, William Jennings Bryan is the midwestern rube unable and more importantly unwilling to account for and afraid of new learning. WJB is portrayed . . . Continue reading →
I admit it. I grew up reading comic books and still enjoy a good comic-book based film. The Green Lantern wasn’t one of those. The Green Lantern was never one of my favorites. I was a Captain America guy. The 2011 Green . . . Continue reading →
—Guest Post By the Rev. Mr. Nollie Malabuyo § On the Lord’s Day, September 8, 2013, Trinity Covenant Reformed Church in Imus, Cavite held its regular Sunday adult class and worship service. But it was also a thanksgiving service for God’s faithfulness . . . Continue reading →
Mark Dever sent me a note the other day about Edward Taylor (1642–1729). Mea culpa but I’m not familiar with his work so I did did an online search and, of course, the first result was Wikipedia. On my way to the . . . Continue reading →
In season 5 of Office Hours we’re focusing on the biblical, Christian, confessional doctrine and practice of sanctification, the process of being made holy, of being brought into gradual conformity to Christ by the grace of the Spirit through dying to sin . . . Continue reading →
What follows is a guide aimed particularly at church webmasters and others who are just beginning to create blogs and websites. I get questions about this from time to time and I occasionally see things that suggest the need for this post. . . . Continue reading →
The WSC bookstore was closed for the summer but it’s open and selling faculty titles online again. This means that the hardcopy of Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey is once again available via online order. In the interim . . . Continue reading →
I dislike endnotes generally but I really resent endnotes in academic books. This morning I was reading Scott Manetsch’s excellent volume on life of the church in Calvin’s Geneva. I wanted to read his discussion of Sabbath legislation and enforcement in Geneva. . . . Continue reading →
Have you ever used, heard, or read these cumbersome constructions: “I had had that same experience but then something else happened” or “She said that car nearly hit her”? My experience suggests that they are being used more frequently but they need . . . Continue reading →
—By Jon Hoglund. A good “Companion” introduces one to classic texts in a field and to areas of current debate in scholarly literature. Apart from Richard Muller’s monumental Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, there is no such volume for Reformed history and theology from . . . Continue reading →
After a summer re-model, the seminary bookstore is back online, which makes it again possible to order copies of Baptism, Election, and the Covenant of Grace more easily. Click on the image for your copy. It’s $1.50 plus shipping. You can also . . . Continue reading →
Reading online is great. It’s fast. It’s convenient. It’s accessible but there’s still a lot of important information that you can’t get from the web. I’m not writing against e-books, even though they still have weaknesses (e.g., footnotes don’t work and reading . . . Continue reading →
These arguments often come down to definitions. If we define culture as the sum of a series of factors including language, a web of relationships (family, community), that shapes the way we think about food, clothing, and work then culture is one . . . Continue reading →
On Twitter Anthony Bradley pointed us to a webpage by Ra McLaughlin on the Sabbath. There is good material there but there are also a couple of items that warrant discussion. The one on which I want to focus in this post . . . Continue reading →